Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc.

Kaangayan, Kalambuan, Kalinaw ... sa Mindanaw, sa Pilipinas, sa Kalibutan

Balay Mindanaw to hold course for peace and development practitioners

The newly-inaugurated Balay Mindanaw Peace Center will conduct of a four-week course for key staff of the Balay Mindanaw Group of NGOs (BMFI, BDSI, BALAOD and RCED) and key community leaders and Local Government Executives on February 15 to 24 and March 14 to 24, 2005.

This Comprehensive Course for Peace and Development Practitioners will consist of four modules including a seven-day actual work in the various peace zones in Mindanao. This course is a follow up to the CRS and KAF-supported 7-day course conducted during the last quarter of 2004.

While the Course is being conducted, a professional team will be documenting the proceedings and will come up with a Manual for Peace-Builders which will be used by the graduates as they implement the peace-building plans that they have formulated during the Course.

The year 2004 saw Balay Mindanaw re-formulating its mission statement to capture its serious work for peace. The new Balay Mindanaw mission statement reads: “Helping Build Empowered Sustainable Communities in Mindanao. Helping Build Peace”. This course is part of Balay Mindanaw’s new strategic plan on peace-building as it expects to form a core pool of 25 trained NGO peace workers and 25 grassroots and local government leaders able to work on community-based peace-building and as support team for the GRP-RPM-M Peace Process

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) will help fund the course while the Catholic Relief Service (CRS) will help Balay Mindanaw organize and run it.