The CLEEN Foundation in June 2021 was awarded the Village Monitoring System on Early Warning Early Response (EWER) project in Nigeria alongside the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Toronto by the United States Department of States. The project goal was to contribute to the reduction of civilian attacks in sixteen communities in Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba and Zamfara states.
The project was designed to contribute to the mitigation and ultimately ending frequent conflicts, disappearances and mass violence, especially in Northern Nigeria, that is being driven by the effects of climate change; ethnic, religious and cultural tensions; weak response by security agencies; communities resorting to self-help; self-protection and negligible involvement of women through the empowerment of community members, including women, to serve as peacebuilders trained in early detection and early response to conflicts, and through fostering their full participation as citizens in a more equitable economy and more tolerant religious and cultural landscape.
The specific objectives of the project are to:
o Strengthen understanding of regional conflicts and mitigation opportunities through stakeholder assessment and community engagement;
o Strengthen and expand linkages in sixteen (16) communities between early warning alerts of incidents and – on-the-ground responders through communications and networking activities and;
o Build the capacity of thirty-two (32) early responders to respond to conflict incidents and to mitigate violence in sixteen (16) Northern Nigerian communities over two years.
The project was supported by the United States Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations in partnership with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and seeks to end the cycle of violent conflict in Northern Nigeria through the empowerment of community members, including women trained to serve as peacebuilders in early detection and early response to conflict, and fostering their full participation as citizens in a more equitable economy and more tolerant religious and cultural landscape. The project was implemented over two years