Voice to Vision description
Giving Voice to Vision
“We have to re-discover Africa. The first discovery of Africa by Europe was the wrong one. It was not a discovery. It was an act of misperception. They saw, and bequeathed to future ages, an Africa based on what they thought of as important. They did not see Africa. And this wrong seeing of Africa is part of the problems of today. Africa was seen from a point of view of greed, of what could be got from it. And what you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them. It is now time for a new seeing. It is now time to clear the darkness from the eyes of the Western world.
“The world should now begin to see the light in Africa, to see its sunlight, to see its brightness, its brilliance, its beauty. If we see it, it will be revealed. We only see what we see. Only what we see, what we see anew, is revealed to us. Africa has been waiting, for centuries, to be discovered with eyes of love, the eyes of a lover. There is no true seeing without love.”
–Ben Okri, Nigerian writer, and winner of the Booker prize in literature
With its “uncomfortable commitment to bringing the perpetrator back into the family, Africa has something to say to the world.”
–Alex Boraine, deputy chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Voice to Vision is a pilot project under the auspices of Catalyst for Peace that seeks to give voice to individual and communal stories of forgiveness, reconciliation, and community reintegration in post-accord Africa. Voice to Vision works (in image, sound, and written word) to bring these stories of hope across borders to illumine the tremendous, yet often invisible, efforts of grassroots peacebuilders working to bring reconciliation and forgiveness to their communities and countries.
The Voice to Vision Fellowship also works simultaneously to develop the voice of young women peacebuilders. The Voice to Vision Fellowship pilots a mentorship/ accompaniment model of working with younger women in the field of peacebuilding. The Fellowship is rooted in the assumption that some of the most important parts of developing peacebuilders are not tools, skills, or even content knowledge, as much as qualities of character, ways of being — sensibilities. Okri and Boraine’s quotes, above, suggest some of these: Seeing with love, with a generous heart. Listening with a willingness to be made uncomfortable. These are sensibilities with transformative potential – individually and for the world. Beyond the scope of the training afforded by the Academy, these character traits and sensibilities can best be developed through direct experience and active mentoring. This project will help provide such experience, matched with the opportunity to articulate the learning that emerges from it for a broader audience.