A nonprofit developed by Kyle Dietrich, currently studying at the Fletcher School, has received funding from the Clinton Global Initiative to support grassroots peace building efforts in Burundi. Dietrich, who served as a human rights officer with a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Burundi, founded Peace in Focus in Somerville after he returned. The organization uses photojournalism to engage youth in interdisciplinary dialogue around non-violence and social change. Furthermore, it works to build relationships between youth from communities in the United States and youth around the world whose communities are divided as a result of violence, disaster, or neglect.
Peace in Focus equips young people with cameras and encourages them to document not only what they see around them, but works to strengthen the creation of an organic local narrative, building visual literacy and leadership skills, and promoting reconciliation between different social groups.
In the course of conflict or war, young people who had been taken from their homes, orphaned, or forced to become children soldiers, are often marginalized within their own land after the conflict has ended.
Dietrich explained, “They frequently get sidelined. We want to give them skills and a voice, and photography is a way to give them that voice.”
Earlier this year, Tufts President Lawrence Bacow accompanied several Tufts students, including Dietrich, to the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) in New Orleans. At the meeting’s conclusion, the Wal-Mart Foundation gave $500,000 to support commitments made by select CGIU participants that develop practical and innovative solutions to global problems. Peace in Focus applied and was recently awarded $2,000 in funding.
Those funds will go to support ongoing Peace in Focus programs in Burundi in partnership with Jamaa, a Burundian organization that will apply the methods of Peace in Focus to train former child soldiers, orphans of HIV/AIDS and the recent civil war, refugees, and other neglected and abused youth.
Jamaa, which means "family" in Swahili, will use the funds to support photojournalism among the youth and to develop a local peace journal. Peace in Focus is also looking to raise additional funds to continue their efforts in Burundi and expand to other conflict-ridden societies such as Liberia, Brazil, and Sri Lanka.
Dietrich, also a former Peace Corps Volunteer, founded Peace in Focus with photographer Kate Fedosova, originally from Ukraine, and the two are leading its efforts.
In addition to peace building and conflict transformation studies at Fletcher, Dietrich simultaneously is pursuing a degree at Harvard Divinity School, where he focuses on religious and identity-based conflict and reconciliation.
