?? May news: Climate-informed peacebuilding & more

Dear Friends,

Our work this spring has strengthened our commitment to locally-rooted peacebuilding—to listen to communities impacted by conflict, and help strengthen their own capacity to heal divides and stop the cycle of violence.

Our new project in Benin recently held its first workshops for community members—and we are deeply inspired by the way local community members are working across divides in the face of hardship (read more or scroll down for the story). Meanwhile, in Nigeria, we have been actively passing the torch: The project team has been providing new layers of support, training, and coaching so that local leaders can carry the project forward far into the future.

Closer to our home office, in Western Massachusetts, we are making summer plans to continue supporting middle and high schools’ work to foster more inclusive, safe, and resilient school communities—building on our BRAVE Schools project. Our next steps will help administrators implement restorative practices to manage conflict and build community. In a national climate of extreme political polarization and rising threats of extremism, we believe schools play a vital role in violence prevention.

Thank you for your support of all of this work!

The Karuna Center team

Cooperation on the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis

New partnerships with farmers and herders in Benin

Climate change is here—bringing new risks of conflict. In northern Benin, community livelihoods face threats from droughts, floods, and changing land fertility; a situation faced across West Africa. Longstanding arrangements between farmers and herders continue to be disrupted as they adapt by planting crops in different times and places, or driving cattle to new grazing areas due to changing climate patterns.

Conflicts over land use can escalate into communal violence when cattle stray onto farmers’ tender crops or new fields appear in herders’ pathways. However, violence is not inevitable: farmers and herders are stepping up to safeguard peace.

Our new Building Climate and Conflict Resilient Communities (BCCRC) program in Benin supports farming and herding communities' desire for a secure and peaceful future. The program’s unique approach uses climate data to help farmers and herders plan ahead and collectively address conflict and improve farming and herding activities— while providing training and coaching to strengthen their skills in managing conflict across divides. This is a close collaboration with the Benin-based Association Coexister and draws lessons from our work with Neem Foundation in Nigeria.

In April 2024, our first workshops—a 4-day dialogue facilitator training and a 3-day early warning-early response training—prepared participants from four core communities to lead dialogues and peacebuilding activities. These sessions united herders and farmers, including women and youth from diverse ethnic backgrounds, to strengthen their skills in managing conflict. In one town still reeling from recent violence between herders and farmers, participants began repairing relationships during the workshop. Reflecting on the training, Karuna Program Manager Troy Caruana noted:

One of the participants pointed out that the leaders and communities were so dismayed from these most recent attacks that communication had more or less been severed between the groups. She pointed out that getting herders and farmers from the same town to follow the same training, with the goal of community peace, already sends a very powerful message signaling hope and a desire to work towards collective peace.

READ MORE >>

BCCRC is an 18-month pilot program funded by the US Department of State's Bureau of Conflict & Stabilization Operations.

Photos from Around Our Programs

Save the Date!

Commemorating Karuna's 30th Year: Saturday, Sept. 14?? 3:00pm

Amherst Women's Club ? 35 Triangle St ? Amherst, MA 01002

Free and open to the public ? Details at?karunacenter.org/events