Research & Development

Conflict Transformation  

ICA:UK is holding a number of introductory events in 2012 to introduce Kumi and identify and explore issues and places where it might be applied.  After the success of the first course in Nottingham in November 2011, we are running a second course in Bristol on 20-21 February.  See Introducing Kumi (pdf) for more information on the method.

ICA:UK is working on the project “Beyond Managing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Demonstrating the Effectiveness of a Model for Social Transformation in Conflict”, which is part of a wider ten-year action research programme (2003–2013) created and coordinated by TRANSFORM. The programme aims at facilitating the bottom-up mobilisation of empowered constituencies for a socially just peace – making it a unique intervention in its scope and philosophy of action especially in the Middle East case and within the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

In its most recent  phase, the programme developed and tested a new methodological toolkit for ‘Social Transformation in Conflict’ (STiC), which will be used by groups or individuals in order to deal with conflicts among themselves and with others; organise themselves towards action; build positive relations and sustainably develop their communities. The new toolkit, called KUMI (or Rise Up in both Arabic and Hebrew) combines three distinct approaches to conflict transformation and community development and will allow communities, organisations and other groups to creatively engage in dealing with conflicts and the sustainable development of their societies.  It is a vision-led, action-orientated process to enable a group which is in conflict, and wants to make a contribution but is insufficiently organised to do so, to get to a point where they have a deeper understanding of each others’ perspectives and needs and where they are ready to start moving forward together. To read more see Kumi History and Description (pdf)

The creation of KUMI is being done through the collaboration of ICA:UK, the Institute of Integrative Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding (IICP) and the ARIA Group.

Over the last few years, the programme received funding from NOVIB (Oxfam Netherlands), the MBI Foundation, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the ZIVIK programme of the German Foreign Ministry and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). In 2009-2010 the programme is funded by generous grants from the European Commission’s Partnership for Peace programme and ZIVIK. This phase is implemented by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Germany), the Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation (YIFC – Israel), the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH - Palestine), and TRANSFORM.

In 2011 the work with Kumi began to spread beyond Israel and Palestine and to apply the method and approach to other areas and other types of conflict. In Europe, in an initiative led by TRANSFORM, ICA:UK is working with organisations in the Netherlands, and Germany to explore how KUMI can help address the growing issue of Islamophobia.

We are working with Living Well UK and the Richard Wells Research Centre at Thames Valley University to introduce the Positive Self Management Programme, developed at Stanford University, into Africa.

An initial pilot project (funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation) was conducted in Kenya and Uganda in 2005-06, with a comprehensive impact assessment (pdf) being carried out in mid-2007. As with the evaluation of the pilot, this evaluation looked at a variety of areas associated with participants’ confidence levels; adherence to medication; quality of life; attitudes towards the programme; and whether or not they felt they had enough information and knowledge to make decisions regarding key issues relating to their general health, welfare and ability to support others.

The evaluation of participants conducted immediately following their completion of the PSMP found that in the vast majority of these areas statistically significant improvements were made, and for the most part this evaluation found that these improvements had been sustained eighteen months later. Participants believe that the PSMP has had a huge impact on their lives, changing them for the better.

Work is now continuing to expand the work in Kenya and Uganda and to introduce the course into other African countries (e.g. Zimbabwe and Zambia)