Paper by Megan Greeley
Across the multi-sectoral peacebuilding field, training and capacity building is often conducted through single, multi-day workshops that focus on transferring knowledge and skills in a hierarchical manner and without much thought about post-workshop training and capacity building. A virtual community of practice can act as a bridge between in-person multi-day peer-learning retreats and the continuation of sharing, reflecting and learning over time in home contexts. Grounded in a postcolonial research paradigm, this study uses informal action research with 31 peacebuilders in Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya living and working in ongoing war-affected communities to examine how an informal virtual community of practice or community/learning site of knowledge can be cultivated with a possible developmental peer mentoring network embedded. Thematic analysis of qualitative data reveals a developmental peer mentoring network may be self-organizing within a possible informal community of peacebuilding practice and, consequently, generating different kinds of value for the individual peacebuilders and the group which can drive greater peacebuilding impact at the community and wider levels. Read it here.