Vertical Social Cohesion in Catholic Relief Services’ Binding, Bonding, and Bridging (3Bs) Methodology

Join the Kroc Institute for a lecture by Valarie "Vat" Kamatsiko, currently working with Catholic Relief Services as the Africa Peacebuilding Technical Advisor providing support to CRS programs across Africa. Vat is a Catholic Relief Services Visiting Research Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies this semester.

Vat is a theorist-practitioner who is widely published in peer-reviewed academic journals and more popular publications as well. Prior to working with CRS, she served as the Regional Peacebuilding Advisor for East Africa with World Vision, providing leadership to peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity work in Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Vat's expertise is in integrating conflict-sensitivity and peacebuilding concerns with humanitarian and development assistance, integrating children and youth into peacebuilding efforts, multi-faith peacebuilding, and macro and micro level participatory conflict analysis. 

Vat's lecture will focus on the concept of vertical social cohesion in Catholic Relief Services' Binding, Bonding, Bridging (or 3Bs) methodology. The methodology initially developed in Mindanao, Philippines, was further refined in the Central African Republic, and has since been applied in more than 10 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East with favorable results. However, lessons learned and recommendations from case studies indicate that while there were successes in effecting change at personal and relational levels, the opportunities to impact systems and structures were either missed or under-explored. This lecture will offer a crystallized definition of vertical social cohesion and offer insights for improving the methodology.