Peace workers say involving local communities key to ending conflict

Published: 2005-07-21

DAVAO, Philippines (CNS) -- Catholic peace workers at an international conference in the southern Philippines said the church must act to end conflicts in their countries by involving local communities. "We're convinced that to build peace, we have to involve people at all levels," said Gerard Powers, director of policy studies in the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Powers chairs the steering committee of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, which sponsored its annual conference July 13-15 in Davao. The conference drew 71 peace workers from trouble spots in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. Participants discussed presentations by local peace groups after network members visited diocesan, parish and community peace projects in Mindanao, the Philippines' second-largest island. Davao is in eastern Mindanao. "We are looking at the institutional church and its leaders, while we also listen and tap the expertise of those working in the communities," Powers told UCA News.

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