A focal point of our peacebuilding work is the healing and well-being of our communities that are closest to the issues we work on. As part of Humanity United’s series on well-being, our colleague Zoë Newcomb begins with a reflection on the importance of centering restoration and healing in peacebuilding practices.
As the world grapples with a profound and destabilizing convergence of global crises, it is more important than ever to center the essential place of wellbeing in lasting peace. Attention to wellbeing invites us to consider not just what but how we respond, threading an orientation of care throughout our collective work.
In Humanity United’s peacebuilding work, we intentionally use the language of wellbeing to give voice to the diverse and multidimensional elements that support individual, communal, and societal health and flourishing. When peacebuilders have access to spaces, processes, and relationships where they can be well, safe, and cared for, they are empowered to engage from a place of strength, creativity, and resilience.
A wellbeing approach considers a holistic picture of what individuals and communities need, both immediately and over the long-term. It also requires acknowledgement of the structural interplay between individual and systemic forces that create and perpetuate harm, isolation, and exploitation.
Too often, the field–and funders in particular–view wellbeing as a luxury rather than essential to the individuals and communities building peace. This continues to be a dominant narrative, despite ample evidence that indicates the ways in which a systemic lack of support and care are creating unprecedented levels of burnout and isolation in the field.
This is a critical moment for funders to acknowledge that wellbeing work isn’t just a line in a grant budget but a lens through which we must (re)imagine all of our work. We must recognize that the wellbeing of peacebuilders is the most essential foundation to all aspects of the peacebuilding process, from protection to transitional justice to movement-building.
The challenge of this work is there is no “one size fits all” approach. A wellbeing approach must be anchored in relationship and responsiveness to the multiplicities of ways that peacebuilders experience and respond to the impacts of conflict, crisis, and trauma, both lived and inherited.
Recently, we have been collaborating with peers and colleagues to begin curating a shared set of care and wellbeing practices for philanthropy: a collaborative resource featuring concrete pathways and stories through which funders are working to bring trauma-informed, wellbeing-oriented, and relationship-centered approaches to their work. This practice bank is not comprehensive, but we offer it as an entry point for conversations with others also seeking to do this work.
In the coming weeks, we will share stories, reflections, and examples of how wellbeing is showing up in the work of our partners across Humanity United. Our hope is that these pieces invite you into the conversation about how we can tangibly center wellbeing and respond with greater urgency to the crisis of care that threatens to further destabilize our collective work.