Playful Peacebuilding

A letter from Cobbie and Dessa Palm, mission co-workers serving in the Philippines

Summer 2023

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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Dear friends,

As a child, Queenie was able to distinguish the sound of footsteps and tell whether they belonged to her father, mother, one of her siblings, and even relatives. She was so keen in recognizing these sounds that she could even discern which emotions were carried by her parents: were these footsteps of an angry father, or an excited parent? Soon, she was trained to listen to the footsteps of those involved in troubling political conflicts in their villages that involved the government’s army, the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Depending on whose footsteps they hear, their family has determined different courses of action, some of which involved slipping into hiding places or running to designated foxholes or trenches. This was how they survived the violent conflict that engulfed their area.

Facilitators and participants of the “Why Peace Needs Arts” class

Because of the precarity of the situation, they were instructed not to mingle with children from the other side of the river who belonged to another faith tradition. But being adventurous children, she and her brother would find themselves on their side of the riverbank, curious about the children from the other side. Soon, the curiosity turned to gestures of openness, with both sides developing signals to communicate with each other. These innocent attempts to reach out from both banks would later develop into other forms of generosity, with each group sending little toys and gifts made of bamboo and other indigenous materials and through makeshift rafts finding a way to the other riverside. They learned to play despite the distance and forge friendships that only children would create.

Workshop participants illustrate their image of peace agreements.

Years later, Queenie would become a grassroots peacebuilder whose experiences as a child would impassion her resolve to find ways of bridging communities in conflict-charged communities. As Peacebuilding Training Program Officer of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, she brings powerful testimonies of how important it is to make connections without prejudice and to listen to the stories of each community affected by the conflict.

The childlike playfulness is what we also try to rekindle among peacebuilders in the course Dessa co-facilitated with Japanese artist-educator Kyoko Okumoto in early June 2023. The course is called “Why Peace Needs the Arts: Exploring Creative Resources for Peacebuilding.”

Peace sign made of personal objects

During the five-day course, we embarked on interactive activities to practice the use of the arts in healing, reawakening senses, opening dialogue, visioning and transformative action while examining the power of language, relations and creative agency. After holding the course online for three years due to the pandemic, it was great to finally hold it face-to-face, with participants from various parts of the Philippines as well as Cambodia. It was a week of creative games, role-playing, conversation and reflection.

In his seminal text The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, peace builder and scholar John Paul Lederach suggests that peacebuilding practitioners must explore the creative process itself, not as a tangential inquiry, but as the wellspring that feeds the building of peace.

Arts is indeed an integral part of our human experience. It connects us to the divine while also becoming cognizant of social relationships and complex realities with all its paradoxes.

Continue to pray with us so that conflict-charged areas may continue to find possibilities for peace, justice and love to prevail. Thank you for enabling us to contribute to these efforts through your prayers and untiring support.

Dessa and Cobbie Palm