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Draft Culture of Peace Programme in Mozambique 20 C. Network of Peace Promoters A unique feature of the Culture of Peace Programme, which sets it apart from all other programmes of its type, is its training and networking of "peace-promoters." In addition to their initial in-service training, peace-promoters make a commitment to an ongoing process of inter-communication and periodic additional training and reunions for the exchange of experiences. In this way the culture of peace becomes a cumulative process based on the gathering and analysis of experience accumulated at a grass-roots level. Peace-promoters are not a new profession as such. Instead they are teachers, community organizers, development workers, social workers, and youth animators who have received specialized in-service training in conflict resolution based on traditional peace-making methods, who then make use of these skills in the course of their work at a community level and who are linked together by means of a mutually supportive networking system. They will be trained and deployed in most of the projects of the Programme. The conflict resolution work of the peace-promoter is needed to ensure cross-conflict participation in the various projects by people who have previously been at war with each other. A special communication system is being designed for peace-promoters which can enable them to communicate with each other and with the Programme even if they are located in isolated villages or parts of the countryside (see Project Profile 9.0). The peace-promoter is encouraged to make this communication system available for the use of the community, for example, as a teaching tool for children in the community school. Since the system is high-tech, making use of computer technology, it enables the peace-promoter to function as an educator, both in terms of the technology of information and in terms of access to particular distant information. The peace-promoter should represent and symbolize for people on a local community level the global culture of peace programme and capacities of the United Nations. Peace-promoters thus wear two hats: one is their work at the community level which may be as a teacher, community organizer or development worker; the other is their work in conflict resolution and their role as a representative of the global culture of peace process associated with the United Nations.
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