Love and Forgiveness in Governance: Exemplars: Fambul Tok

Adapted from Libby Hoffman's "How It Works: An In-Depth Look at the Fambul Tok Process."[1]

Fambul Tok (Krio for "family talk") began in Sierra Leone as a nation-wide, face-to-face community-owned program that brings together perpetrators and victims of the violence from Sierra Leone's eleven-year civil war for the first time since the war ended. They come together in village-level ceremonies rooted in ancient Sierra Leonean cultural traditions of truth-telling, apology and forgiveness. At evening bonfire ceremonies, victims give voice to their memories and perpetrators confess. They can ask for and offer forgiveness when ready, preparing the way for individuals and communities to forge a new future — together.

Fambul Tok is built upon Sierra Leone's "family talk" tradition of discussing and resolving issues within the security of the family circle. The program works at the village level to help communities organize ceremonies that include truth-telling bonfires and traditional cleansing ceremonies — practices that many communities have not employed since before the war. After the ceremony, Fambul Tok works with the communities to organize activities to support and sustain the reconciliation process. These have included radio-listening clubs, football matches, Peace Mothers groups, and even village-initiated community farms, projects through which newly reconciled individuals are able to come together for the good of the community.

Although Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) provided a detailed account of the war and opportunities for a limited number of people to tell their stories, Sierra Leoneans expressed a need for opportunities for victims, perpetrators and communities to address the wounds and issues from the war, which continue to divide families and communities and could, if unaddressed, lead to renewed violence. Fambul Tok has stepped into that gap.

In the first five years of the program there have been over 155 reconciliation ceremonies in communities across the country, with over 2700 people testifying to over 60,000 of their neighbors.

Fambul Tok is run on the ground by Fambul Tok International — Sierra Leone (FTI-SL), which works in partnership with US-Based private foundation Catalyst for Peace (CFP). To share the lessons of the work with the world, Catalyst for Peace has produced an award-winning documentary — Fambul Tok, currently being broadcast on EPIX cable channel, and available on Netflix and Amazon.[2] It has developed supporting educational materials and launched a schools program to help young people around the world learn from Fambul Tok's stories and practices of forgiveness.

Fambul Tok is inspired by the conviction that each person has the power, goodness and capacity to contribute to society in helpful and healthy ways. But when people experience violence and hurt, those innate capacities can become be suppressed, often causing individuals to act in ways contrary to their nature. By reviving traditional practices that have proved effective in the past, and by empowering local leaders to provide ongoing guidance and moral support in the process of forgiveness and reconciliation, Fambul Tok helps restore people and communities to wholeness. In sharing Fambul Tok's stories and lessons with the world, FTI-SL and CFP also invite others to rediscover their own goodness, and to help make their own communities more whole.

 

[1] Hoffman, Libby. "How It Works: An In-Depth Look at the Fambul Tok Process." Fambul Tok. (Umbrage Editions, 2011). <http://www.fambultok.com/book>.

[2] "Fambul Tok: A Film About the Powers of Forgiveness." Dir. Sara Terry. Catalyst for Peace, 2010. Film. <http://www.fambultok.com/>.