Center for Conflict Transformation & Peace Studies

Background of the Project

Since 2000, CRS Ghana has worked with the Diocese of Damongo to implement the Northern Ghana Peacebuilding project. In 2004, the project was renamed Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies. The Center acts as a resource for other peace programs.

How Do We Do This Project and What Are Our Accomplishments to Date?

The goal of Catholic Relief Services' Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies is to promote sustainable peace in the three northern regions of Ghana. This is accomplished by building the capacity of church-based organizations, local government institutions, traditional political structures, and local non-governmental organizations in the areas of conflict prevention, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. The Center has Satellite Peacebuilding Centers in all the five dioceses of the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province. The Center's main office at Damongo Unity Center builds the capacity of the project staff and the Satellite Peacebuilding Center teams to carry on with grass-roots peacebuilding initiatives. Each Satellite Center has an executive body, a training team and a mediation team. Since 2004, more than 7,000 people have attended workshops that bring people together to reflect on peace and conflict issues.

The Critical Yeast: Reverend Sister Melanie Amikiya

Written by CRS Ghana's Senior Program Officer for Peacebuilding, Sabie Naah

She is 37-years old, a humble Sister of the St. Gilda's Convent. The late Reverend Eugene of Bimbilla Parish introduced Sister Melanie to the concept of peacebuilding and conflict transformation in 2003. Soon after that the Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies Project conceived the idea of setting up Satellite Peace Centers in each of the five dioceses of the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province. It took a lot of persuasion to get Sister Melanie to accept becoming part of the Yendi Diocese Satellite Peacebuidling Center.

"At first I could not imagine ever playing the role I am playing now. I had no confidence in myself. I believed that my vocation did not include helping people to resolve their conflicts amicably. Now I know that exactly is the core of my vocation. We cannot speak about Jesus to people who are living in fear of reprisal attacks from their adversaries. We cannot set up schools and hospitals in the midst of chaos."

— Sister Melanie Amikiya
June 2005

Once Sister Melanie became convinced that working for peace is a vocation, there has never been a limit to what she can do. Riding on a small Yamaha motorbike, Sister Melanie would cover 98 kilometers of a rugged and dusty road to Yendi for meetings. She covers 49 kilometers weekly to facilitate dialogue meetings between Konkombas and Nanumbas in Chamba, who have had a protracted conflict that culminated in the infamous 1993 war.

In Bimbilla, Sister Melanie has worked with youth groups and women leaders to contain the explosive chieftaincy conflict in that town. In this part of the world, few women "meddle" in affairs of chieftaincy conflicts. However, Sister Melanie is a pioneer. She visits individual chiefs to find ways of preventing the resurgence of violence in the township. She has mobilized the women in the town to educate their daughters, sons, and husbands to eschew violence and to find ways of resolving their chieftaincy disputes nonviolently. After a training on peacebuilding, conflict transformation and good governance the group of women from Bimbilla took the initiative to seek audience with the district chief executive and demanded that the district do more to ensure the security of the town. Sister Melanie has initiated a similar program, Women in Peacebuilding, in Chamba. Sister Melanie is the only woman among the ten Satellite Peacebuilding Center executives.

"I have lived all my life hating the Konkombas. I never for once believe that I can ever have anything to do with them. Since December (2005) when Sister (Melanie) started visiting us, and we began to dialogue with the Konkombas, I have changed my opinion about them. They fear us just as we fear them. We have being living in fear and so suspected one another. I look forward to the day when our children will live without this fear of one another."

— The Wulana (Senior Aide to the Chief) of Chamba