BPFNA provides support for 15 peace projects in 2021 through the Peace Fund-Fondos por la Paz! • ¡BPFNA brinda apoyo para 15 proyectos de paz en 2021 a través del Fondo de Paz-Fondos por la Paz!
Photo above: Participants in a 2020 Conflict Transformation workshop in Burundi. This project was supported by the Peace Fund during a previous grant cycle.
BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz celebrates the support given to 15 projects for peace and justice during this year’s Peace Fund-Fondos por la Paz grant cycle. The Peace Fund-Fondos por la Paz was established in 2018 and empowers small, grassroots groups around the world doing the work of peacemaking on a local or regional level.
“We received close to 30 applications to the Peace Fund this year – all of them from peacemakers deeply passionate about seeking peace and justice in their own contexts,” said Luis Calderon Reyes, chair of the BPFNA board Grant Review committee. “We are blessed to have been able to support approximately half of the proposals received and excited to see how God moves through these faithful servants and their work.”
Located in eight countries across the world, the groups funded are working to either gather, equip or mobilize to build a culture of peace rooted in justice.
2021 Peace Fund-Fondos por la Paz recipients:
Centro de Estudios Ecuménicos AC (CEE) Mexico: CEE works to accompany communities in land defense and sustainability. This project would provide mobility support to territory defenders to carry out community advocacy strategies to six communities. The strategies include: dialogue with local authorities, informative actions to strengthen collective decision making and legal actions to defend the territory against mining companies and prevent the privatization of water.
Community Action for Integration and Development of Fizi (ACIDIF) Democratic Republic of the Congo: ACIDIF is working with refugee youth. This particular project focuses on the creation of a football tournament to create social cohesion between young indigenous Congolese and young Burundians living in refugee camps in Fizi territory, DRC. This teamwork will build community and strengthen the mechanisms of peace between the two groups.
Fundación SEPAZ Colombia: This project will provide psychological trauma support for migrant children living in the Mondomo-Cauca region of Colombia. The project will accompany migrant children through the migration process and provide them with life skills training and trauma management resources.
Fundación Social Ong’s la Gran Comisión Venezuela: This project will train young people (ages 12-25) to be peacekeepers and equip them with the tools to create action plans for implementation in their communities to enable a sustainable and long term focus on peacebuilding.
Juventudes Confraternidad Bautista de Cali Colombia: This project will empower youth leaders from churches and grassroots communities by developing a leadership program for youth in the areas of personal and social transformation.
Kakuma LGBTI Group Kenya: This group and project is working to build community acceptance and support the livelihood of LGBTQ+ refugees living in the Kakuma refugee camp.
Kingdom of Peace and Development (KOPAD) Kenya: KOPAD works on Conflict Transformation in the Northwest and Northern regions of Kenya. This project will support a weekly radio broadcast focused on how to build peace and transform conflict. Based on Biblical principles the radio show will discuss conflict, reconciliation, conflict mediation, conflict resolution and forgiveness -- and equip listeners with the tools to build peace across barriers and borders.
Marginalized Refugee Empowerment Program Africa (MAREPA) Kenya: MAREPA is working on raising awareness around and responding to the trauma of those who are members of the LGBTQ+ community living in exile.
Pan-African Peace Network Burundi (PAP-NET Burundi) Burundi/Rwanda: PAP-NET Burundi focuses on Conflict Transformation. This project will support Conflict Transformation trainings to improve relations between Burundi and Rwandan communities – particularly with refugees who are reintegrating back into their home communities after a new government was installed in Burundi in August 2020.
Peacebuilding, Healing & Reconciliation Program (PHARP) Kenya: This project will focus on equipping youth in the Jilore region of Kenya with the skills to say no to drugs and prostitution. Through this project, PHARP will also equip the youth with peacebuilding and life skills trainings to seek other alternatives and make different choices.
Seminario Bautista de México Mexico: The Baptist Seminary of Mexico focuses on a holistic approach to biblical and theological education. This project will offer workshops to Indigenous and other marginalized communities and churches, who are often denied biblical-theological education and other areas of education, to explore theology in their own contexts and through a lens of becoming builders of peace rooted in justice.
Seminario Intercultural Mayense Mexico: This project will empower Indigenous Tseltal and Tsotsil women in Chiapas through informational sessions on individual and collective rights and the patriarchal and misogynistic systems of oppression. This project will mobilize women and girls to build networks of collective solidarity and inclusive feminism to end the systems of violence toward Indigenous women.
Seminario Teológico Bautista del Ecuador Ecuador: This project will provide training and awareness resources to prevent domestic violence and to end the messages from the church pulpit that normalize or provoke violence and subjugation of women.
Trees of Peace/Lance Muteyo Zimbabwe: Trees of Peace will host a five-day intensive Conflict Transformation training to equip village leaders with the skills of Conflict Transformation to build sustainable and ongoing peacebuilding programs.
Unbreakable Love Group Kenya: Unbreakable Love works with LGBTQ+ refugees, particularly youth. This project seeks to help people deal with and minimize long-term trauma from past experiences through psychological support and Conflict Transformation workshops.
“We are grateful for brave and skilled peacemakers who use their gifts to work for peace – and empower others to work for peace – until it comes,” said BPFNA Interim Executive Director Doris Garcia Rivera. “These modest grants have allowed us to be in solidarity with people of faith endeavoring to create peace rooted in justice in grassroots communities around the world. This has become a significant part of our overall work, and we are honored to support these amazing projects in this capacity.”
Using the annual operating budget of BPFNA, the Peace Fund-Fondos por la Paz grant has been the way BPFNA has continued the work of the Gavel Memorial World Peace Fund, which was depleted at the end of 2018. While the Gavel Fund remains open, grants are on hiatus until it is replenished to the point it can begin its work again. You can make future peace projects possible by designating a gift today to the Gavel Fund or support our work by designating a gift today.
