He was addressing, a peace and social cohesion dialogue session for district stakeholders at the Sahr Musa Sessie Gbenda hall, Koidu city past weekend. The session was facilitated by Fambul Tok International-Sierra Leone in collaboration with Office of the Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, with support from UNDP.
According to Minister Lamina, elections are over but there are still looming issues that need to be addressed, adding that the dialogue session is timely especially at a time when Kono is faced with too many political tensions.
He requested Fambul Tok to take the lead in ensuring training of lead persons and Peace Ambassadors in each chiefdom so that they will embark on peace building and development drive in the district. He extended gratitude also to the Office of the Vice President and held UNPD in high esteem for supporting post- elections peace and social cohesion activities in the country.
Minister Lamina humbly requested the people of Kono to see reason to embark on peace and development so that communities will remain peaceful.
Executive Director, Fambul Tok International-Sierra Leone, John Caulker in his remarks demonstrated the ‘broken cup’ which has many cracks and referred to the cracks as problems in communities that need to be healed. He gave a brief background of the People’s Planning Process (PPP), an initiative developed by Fambul Tok in collaboration with Catalyst for Peace for organizations to work and involve communities in recovery process.
“We saw what happened to the post war recovery resources” he said, adding, we don’t want a repeat of wastage and that is why we brought this initiative so that communities would be fully involved in development activities”. We have worked and continue to operate in three pilot districts of Kailahun, Moyamba and Koinadugu to develop chiefdom plans which makes provision for development activities of every village, section and up to chiefdom levels. Over the past three years we have worked with communities to identify their own development aspirations at village, section and up to chiefdom levels”
He explained that the district stakeholders dialogue in Kono is aimed at promoting peace and social cohesion.
Stakeholders including Paramount Chiefs highlighted several problems affecting the district such as non- respect for authorities, political exclusion and excessive use of political powers, post- election issues, non- involvement of communities in project implementation etc.
