John Caulker

Last updated
John Caulker
Born
Sierra Leone
NationalitySierra Leonean
OccupationExecutive Director and Founder of Fambul Tok International
Known forActivism

John Caulker (28 November 1970) is a Sierra Leonean political and social activist. He has founded several important nongovernmental organizations.

Contents

Early Life

Caulker was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. [1] Before the Sierra Leonean Civil War (1991–2002) started, Caulker lived with his mother there. [1] Caulker and his family fled from Songo in 1995 because the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had reached Songo. [1] Caulker became an activist in the early 1990s, around the same time as the war started. [2]

He was a MSC Criminal Justice Student at University of Leicester UK in 2005 and 2006.

Early Career

In the mid 1990s, Caulker founded the Forum of Conscience. [3] He would dress in jeans and long T-shirts and enter rebel camps to interview the fighters and record their wartime stories. [1] Afterwards, risking his life, John would provide information to Amnesty International to ensure that peoples outside of Sierra Leone could differentiate gossip from facts. [1]

Caulker was then a senior fellow at Catalyst for Peace from its inception in 2003 by Elisabeth Hoffman. It was created to help everyday citizens impact their communities. [4] This organization helped him realize his mission to help communities in Sierra Leone affected by the civil war by setting up his own NGO. [4]

Fambul Tok

In 2007, he founded a nongovernmental organization in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to promote peace in post-civil war Sierra Leone through storytelling. [5] [1] It is called Fambul Tok (Krio for "Family Talk") and he is its executive director. [2]

Origins

A United Nations-special backed court spent over US$300 million attempting to prosecute some of the war criminals in the Sierra Leonean Civil War. Caulker believed this to be a misuse of funds and decided to set up an organization that would do more to help the everyday person heal from the wounds of the war. [6]

Aims

Many former soldiers, some of whom committed serious crimes against their neighbors and neighbors's families, still live in villages in Sierra Leone. [1] Sometimes, former Civil war rebels live beside the very people whom they abused. [1] Caulker believed that reviving the precolonial Sierra Leonean tradition of gathering and telling stories could enhance the sense of community in such villages and repair some of the broken relations. [1]

Process

Fambul Tok centers the idea of solving problems through community building and restorative justice, as opposed to the Western ideals of crime and punishment. [7] The program relies on a diverse array of support ranging from village chiefs to war victims. [7] The organization's method is travelling across Sierra Leone to such villages. [1] Caulker or a staff member begins the process by listening to the community and guiding them to find their own truths. [7] They create an environment that promotes truthful storytelling and transparency and encourage 100% community participation. then they have the perpetrators and victims tell their stories. They then ask perpetrators to choose whether they will ask for forgiveness and victims to choose whether they will give forgiveness. [6] The following day, they host a ceremony in which the participants sacrifice an animal (usually a goal or fowl). [6] Finally, the community circles around a self-designated peace tree which acts as a permanent spot at which people resolve their disputes. [6]

They worked in tandem with the Truth and Reconciliation Working Group (TRWG), a body of Sierra Leonean NGOs that aim to preserve factual storytelling, history in particular, and prevent alternative versions of facts from being publicized. [8] This was to prevent Sierra Leoneans from interpreting history in a way that might encourage future conflicts. [8]

Awards

In 2010, after submitting a trailer detailing the organization's mission, the film Fambul Tok won the first place prize at the My Hero Film Festival, which looks to promote awareness of local issues as a way to create positive change in the world. [9] [10]

Funding

Catalyst for Peace provides assistance, not only acting as an outside overseer to provide funding, but also committing staff members and expertise to contribute to Fambul Tok's mission. [6] This partnership is an "emergent design" for development. [6]

Ebola Outbreak Work

Fambul Tok also did work around the Ebola outbreak. In 2014, Fambul Tok International partnered with nine national NGOs and thirty local community based organizations to form the Bridging Communities Network (BCN), created by Caulker on 26 November 2014 in Port Loko District, Sierra Leone. Its aim was to create a countrywide, local response against the Ebola outbreak. [11]

Caulker and the Fambul Tok staff attempted to educate locals about how to prevent the spread of Ebola. This required full community cooperation, from the staff to the chiefs to the people. [12] The virus affected many families in Sierra Leone, in particular creating many orphans. [13] Due to the belief that a village raises a child, Fambul Tok encouraged orphans to remain in their original communities should their parents pass away. [13]

In advocating for more local involvement as opposed to international involvement in the fight against Ebola, Caulker asked the NGOs to facilitate community building and mobilize social capital to further educate people on how to mitigate the outbreak. [11] Many participants in the network, specifically those who had relatives who had died from Ebola, were helped to have better access to pertinent health-related information. [11] They were thus given cell phones which enabled them to contact high-ranking personnel in the Bridging Communities Network. [11] At the end of 2014, formal consultations had been conducted in Moyamba, Koinadugu, and Kailahun districts. [11]

Inter District Learning and Sharing Conference

The Inter District Learning and Sharing Conferences took place from 10 to 12 November 2016. [14] The conference aimed to create a more community-centered approach to governance where the government would include popular opinions in policy making. [14] The meetings took place in Moyamba, Kailahun, and Koinadugu districts. [14] Building on the foundation he created through the Bridging Communities Network (BCN), Caulker worked with the community and policymakers on how to build sustainable, forward-looking policies to encourage local and national scale development. [14]

Related Research Articles

Sierra Leone Country on the coast of West Africa

Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, informally Salone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea to the northeast. Sierra Leone has a tropical climate with a diverse environment ranging from savanna to rainforests, a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi) and a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions which are subdivided into sixteen districts.

Ahmad Tejan Kabbah

Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was a Sierra Leonean politician who served twice as the 3rd President of Sierra Leone, from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by profession, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992.

Mende people

The Mende people are one of the two largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone; their neighbours, the Temne people, have roughly the same population. The Mende and Temne each account for slightly more than 30% of the total population. The Mende are predominantly found in the Southern Province and the Eastern Province, while the Temne are found primarily in the Northern Province and the Western Area, including the capital city of Freetown. Some of the major cities with significant Mende populations include Bo, Kenema, Kailahun, and Moyamba.

Kailahun Place in Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

Kailahun is the capital of Kailahun District in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Kailahun is a major business and commercial center of Kailahun District. The population was 13,108 in the 2004 census, a 2006 estimate of 18,411 and a current estimate of about 30,411. Kailahun lies in the far east of Sierra Leone, approximately 200 miles east of Freetown ; and about 51 miles north east of Kenema.

Bombali District Place in Northern Province, Sierra Leone

Bombali District is a district in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Makeni, which is also the largest city in the north. Bombali District is one of the fourteen districts of Sierra Leone. Bombali is the second largest district in Sierra Leone by geographical area, after Koinadugu District, and is the second most populous district in the North, after Port Loko District. In the 2015 Sierra Leone national census, the population of Bombali district was 606,183. Other major towns in Bombali District include Kamabai, Karina and Binkolo.

The Civil Defense Forces (CDF) was a paramilitary organization that fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). It supported the elected government of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah against the rebel groups Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Much of the CDF was made up of the Kamajors group, which is part of the larger Mende ethnic group. The Kamajors believed in many magical ways of defending themselves, such as rituals to create bulletproof skin.

Kono District Place in Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

Kono District is a district in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Koidu Town. Motema is the second most populous city in the district. The other major towns in the district include Yengema, Tombodu, Jaiama Nimikor and Sewafe. The district is the largest diamond producer in Sierra Leone. The population of Kono District is 505,767. Kono District borders Kenema District to the southwest, The Republic of Guinea to the east, Koinadugu District to the northeast and Kailahun District to the southeast. Kono District is divided into fourteen chiefdoms.

Articles related to Sierra Leone include:

Mass media in Sierra Leone

Mass media in Sierra Leone began when the first modern printing press in Africa arrived at the start of the 19th century. In the 1860s the country became a journalist hub for Africa with professional travelling to the country from across the continent. At the end of the 19th century the industry went into decline and when radio was introduced in the 1930s this became the primary communication media. Print media is not widely read in Sierra Leone, especially outside Freetown, partially due to the low levels of literacy in the country. In 2008 there were 15 daily newspapers in addition to those published weekly. Among newspaper readership young people are likely to read newspapers weekly and older people daily. The majority of newspapers are privately run and are often critical of the government.

Ella Koblo Gulama Paramount Chief of Kaiyamba Chiefdom, Moyamba District

Ella Koblo Gulama OBE, GCOR was a Sierra Leonean paramount chief and politician. In 1957, she became the first elected female Member of Parliament in Sierra Leone. She was re-elected in 1962. During the government of Milton Margai, Gulama became Sierra Leone and sub-Saharan Africa's first female Cabinet Minister.

Julius Momoh Gulama was a Sierra Leonean paramount chief, statesman and educator in the preindependence era. As paramount chief of Kaiyamba Chiefdom, he ruled the largest and most powerful Mende chiefdom in the Sierra Leone.

Education in Sierra Leone

Education in Sierra Leone is legally required for all children for six years at primary level and three years in junior secondary education, but a shortage of schools and teachers has made implementation impossible. The Sierra Leone Civil War resulted in the destruction of 1,270 primary schools and in 2001 67 percent of all school-age children were out of school. The situation has improved considerably since then with primary school enrollment doubling between 2001 and 2005 and the reconstruction of many schools since the end of the war. However, there is still a long ways to go. In 2004, Junior secondary school enrollment was only 17% of primary school enrollment, and senior secondary school enrollment was only 8% of primary school education.

University of Makeni is the first private, Catholic, university located in Makeni, Sierra Leone.

Religion in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is officially a secular state, although Islam and Christianity are the two main and dominant religions in the country. The constitution of Sierra Leone provides for freedom of religion and the Sierra Leone Government generally protects it. The Sierra Leone Government is constitutionally forbidden from establishing a state religion, though Muslim and Christian prayers are usually held in the country at the beginning of major political occasions, including presidential inauguration.

Women in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a Constitutional Republic in West Africa. Since it was founded in 1787, the women in Sierra Leone have been a major influence in the political and economic development of the nation.

Literature of Sierra Leone is the collection of written and spoken work, mostly fictional, from Sierra Leone. The coastal west-African country suffered a civil war from 1991 until 2002. Before the civil war, Sierra Leone had many writers contributing to its literature and since the end of the war the country has been in the process of rebuilding this literature. This is an overview of some important aspects of the literature of Sierra Leone before, during, and after the civil war. The literature has been wery affected by the new game "minecraft".

<i>Fambul Tok</i>

Fambul Tok is a 2011 documentary film about an organization that aims at reconciliation and forgiveness in communities that were affected by a long-running civil war in Sierra Leone. The film was directed by journalist Sara Terry and it premiered at the South by Southwest film festival. The title of the film is the organization's name, which translates to "family talk" in the Krio language. The film has received mixed reviews from critics. An epilogue to the film documented the community's reconciliation process with one of the major perpetrators of violence during the war.

Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone

An Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone occurred in 2014, along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. On March 18, 2014 Guinean health officials announce the outbreak of a mysterious hemorrhagic fever "which strikes like lightning." It was identified as Ebola virus disease and spread to Sierra Leone by May 2014. The disease is thought to have originated when a child in a bat-hunting family contracted the disease in Guinea in December 2013. Consumption of African bushmeat, including rats, bats, and monkeys, is commonplace in Sierra Leone and West Africa in general.

Ethnic groups in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is home to about sixteen ethnic groups, each with its own language. In Sierra Leone, membership of an ethnic group often overlaps with a shared religious identity.

The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Sierra Leone.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Moore, Jina (July 7, 2008). "Sierra Leone's 'family talk' heals scars of war". The Christian Science Monitor.
  2. 1 2 Staff (2018). "Staff Profiles of Fambul Tok International".
  3. ↑ Moore, Jina (2008-07-07). "Sierra Leone's 'family talk' heals scars of war". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN   0882-7729 . Retrieved 2019-01-08.
  4. 1 2 "Our Story". Catalyst For Peace. Retrieved 2018-12-22.
  5. ↑ "About the "Fambul Tok" process, and Fambul Tok International- Sierra Leone". 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hoffman, Elisabeth (2008-10-20). "» Path to Healing In War-Torn Sierra Leone". Peacebuilder Online. Retrieved 2018-12-22.
  7. 1 2 3 "Our Values". 2018.
  8. 1 2 Caulker, John (September 27, 2006). "Truth and Reconciliation Working Group (TWRG)".
  9. ↑ "The My Hero Project A globally connected learning community". 2017.
  10. ↑ Buehler, Braden (November 10, 2010). "Fambul Tok's film trailer takes first place at My HERO Short Film Festival 2010".
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Yarjoh, Solomon (2014-12-03). "Bridging Communities Network: Facilitating a Community-led Response to the Ebola Crisis | Fambul Tok Blog" . Retrieved 2018-12-27.
  12. ↑ Frankel, Todd (2014-10-10). "The fight to save the last Ebola-free district in Sierra Leone" . Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  13. 1 2 Newsmax TV, Midpoint | John Caulker gives us an update on Ebola in Sierra Leone , retrieved 2018-12-31
  14. 1 2 3 4 Peace, Catalyst For (2016-11-19), WAKE UP SALONE 15 NOV 2016 - Interview with John Caulker and Libby Hoffman , retrieved 2018-12-27
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