A non-governmental organization, Cleen Foundation on Monday began a two days sensitization training for the establishment of an Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) to mitigate violence amongst communities in Taraba state.
Addressing communities representative at the training workshop in Jalingo, the Acting Executive Director of the foundation, Ruth Olofin who was represented by Mr Olaniyi Olumayowa, told the trainees that the village monitoring system was a project conceived out of necessity for peacebuilding in vulnerable communities
According to him, Cleen was interested in finding a way to mitigate recurrent crime in Nigerian society and is putting concerted efforts to place the community members at the driving seat of peacebuilding in their communities by being active participants in peacebuilding projects.
Mr Olaniyi said the foundation was primarily targeting partnership with the communities to ensure that the people propagate peace before the assistance of conventional security in an event of violence.
“The purpose of this project is to mitigate violence amongst our communities and allow peace a place to exist.
“The Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) is to ensure that violence amongst communities are been handled at their early stage. Community members where these incidences normally happened are our primary partners to be actively involved in carrying out the sensitization” Olaniyi said.
He explained that the selection of the few communities in Taraba was done through the foundation’s mapping assessment, that the project is been executed so far in four Nigerian states of Kaduna, plateau Taraba and Zamfara.
Mr Ammed Rufai, the assistant commissioner of the police operation, who spoke on behalf of the Taraba state police command, assured the command’s active participation in the project to ensure mitigation of violence amongst Taraba communities and end insecurity in the state.
In their responses, the council chairmen of Wukari local government Daniel Adi and that of Gassol local government, Musa Abdullahi where the project is been carried out, assured the foundation of their communities cordial working relationship to ensure the success of the project and the establishment of peace in their localities.