Peace is not only the absence of war, but also peace in the community and society, which is manifested in social cohesion 🫶🏻
Social cohesion is a sense of belonging to a community based on an awareness of equality, a desire to be involved, and respect for other community members.
Due to the full-scale war, a large number of people were forced to leave their homes and become part of other communities. Conflicts between IDPs and the local population arise mainly due to the uneven distribution of aid.
We would like to share some valuable thoughts from the panel discussion "Practices of social cohesion during the war" by Darya Rybalchenko, Chairman of the Board of the network
"Speaking about cohesion practices, there is no right option that will be relevant for all communities, because each has its own characteristics, pains and historical context, but if we combine the experience of our Community Foundations, we can highlight the following main points:
Educate and give tools of influence to both local and internally displaced people,
projects should be not only for IDPs, but also for the community,
Facilitate meetings and interaction between local and internally displaced persons,
help unite people by helping others, working together to solve problems or needs,
It is necessary to foster the self-reliance of the affected population.
So how do you create a space for collaboration?
- Set and maintain the quality of events
- Facilitate dialogues and meetings on topics of interest to everyone in the community
- enable the community to create the space on their own
- to create infrastructure for the community, to solve the pains that are relevant to the whole community."
Community cohesion will help us to effectively develop our country and bring victory closer
The panel discussion was held at the All-Ukrainian Forum: "Practices of conflict transformation and social cohesion during the war.