People in Poverty: Agents of Peace and Development
By Saleh Kazige Abasi
Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo — In everyday life, human beings seek happiness and a feeling of well-being through their actions and decisions. We all need to find food and be with other people regardless of our social status or position, our health, our living standards, or our origins. We all want to belong to a cohesive group and, little by little, we work to achieve that. And we work in a similar way to achieve peace and development, which are inseparable.
Peace and development can be understood in various ways. For some people, peace is “an answer to families living without shelter, to children who want to go to school but who always face obstacles in their way”. In its definition of peace, UMUSEKE, an organisation in Rwanda that promotes education for peace, defines peace as “the development of a country and its people. It is when the people are free in their activities and when the country produces enough to benefit all its citizens”.
The notion of peace is thus inextricably linked to development: all human beings must work for peace and all are encouraged to do so, says UMUSEKE. The word “all” includes people living in extreme poverty, victims of rejection and discrimination whose rights are disregarded.
When it comes to peace, and development projects, the efforts of people living in poverty, although an integral part of their lives, are often unseen, unrecognised, or simply ignored.
They are deprived of the means to take on their responsibilities and exercise their rights, to the extent that institutions and social structures are often of no help to them. Yet they must be placed at the centre of these projects since they also have the power to reflect and to act. The situation will change only if other people dare to risk their personal situation for the good of people crushed by the suffering of poverty.
The work to build peace and development must not be the prerogative of a select minority (such as politicians, officers of the law, academics, and national or international associations). Instead, we must recognise that everyone can contribute; we should not ignore the efforts of some people by considering only the efforts of others. Eugen Brand, former director general of ATD Fourth World, points out that people who have suffered the violence of extreme poverty don’t want a mere façade of peace, a surface peace; they want a peace that will lead to real change.
The first change is for all people to be able to live among others and to have access to their rights.
