The month of March is a significant period in the faith for peace project’s life cycle. It did not just mark the end of the first year of the project; it also witnessed the visit of the project officer, Chiara Casarella from Germany for the first time in Nigeria as part of the management and coordination component of the project. Part of her itinerary was special visit to one of the project communities in Nasarawa State, Karu, on March 5th where she had one on one interaction with some of the project beneficiaries, and both parties were excited about meeting each other. The visit also witnessed an interactive session with the entire project consortium where key lessons learned and challenges encountered on the project were shared. The meeting provided staff with the opportunity to ask questions and gain further clarification which it’s hoped that it will go a long way in enhancing future steps on the project.

In the echoes of harmony and whispers of hope, the Faith for Peace Project strides forward, weaving unity and understanding into the fabric of our shared humanity

Another important highlight of the month is the two consultative meetings held with stakeholders from government agencies, ministries, security outfits, community-based groups, and religious groups in Gombe State, from 5th to 7th March, 2024. The meeting afforded stakeholders the opportunity to interact and brainstorm on the menace of religious intolerance as it affects national development and peacebuilding in Nigeria. The interactive session facilitated by Dr. Samuel Obadiah succeeded in enumerating the various strategies for providing safe spaces for people to exercise their fundamental human rights, including their rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion without any fear of intimidation or molestation of any kind. Some of the strategies enumerated for creation of safe space for the realization of people’s Freedom of Religion or Belief include: advocacy, programming, networking, whistle blowing, legal aid, empowerment e.t.c. Participants at the meeting expressed joy for the opportunity to contribute to ensuring human rights are protected and also unanimously resolved to take the campaign to their various fields of endeavour.

TEKAN Peace Desk hosted a second session of its deradicalisation workshop with 600 participants in the six project communities of Kwami Gari, Mallam Sidi, Deba, Kunuwal, Billiri, and Kalmai to close out the month and first year of the project. The workshop’s objective was to raise public awareness of the risks associated with silence over radicalism in local communities. The project team, wisely, decided to try a new approach this time in reaching out to participants on radicalism. Instead of using the typical workshop, this time the various facets of radicalism were dramatized through theater. Participants from all six project areas were excited about the effort during the theater, which essentially discussed radicalism as a threat to development. The participants were awed by the performance as a result of the Gombe-based theater group’s expert staging of the drama. The workshop lasted between March 26th to 28th across the six project communities and that marked the conclusion of the first year of the project.