Restoring Our Future Activity

The USAID-funded Restoring Our Future Activity (ROF) is a five-year project implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and ACDI/VOCA, that promotes reconciliation and the non-repetition of armed conflict in Colombia through the effective implementation of victim and peace-building policies, by strengthening the participation of organizations and by transforming community behaviors and attitudes to consolidate a culture of peace and social inclusion. ACDI/VOCA is the lead implementor of the Activity’s Objective 3, which builds the capacity of communities to participate in comprehensive truth-telling and supports memory initiatives and justice, promoting reflection and collective healing, and strengthening trust, social cohesion, and collective action among individuals, communities and public and private sector actors.

Project Objectives

Strengthen local, regional and national institutions and their coordination to advance the implementation of the Victims Law and Peace Agreement (PA), to protect victims’ rights and advance reconciliation.
Promote and strengthen the participation and impact of victims’ organizations (VOs) and civil society to effectively exercise victims’ rights and support reconciliation efforts.
Build the capacities and willingness of communities to reconcile and contribute to the non-repetition of conflict.

Project Activities

ROF builds trust between the State and communities by operationalizing victim-related programs and strategies using community and participatory approaches.
To strengthen the administrative, technical, advocacy, dialogue, and sustainability of victims’ organizations (VOs), ROF will design and implement a dynamic, differential, and psychosocial #Empowerment4Change Model (#E4C) focused on building individual and collective skills.
ROF utilizes a reconciliation and non-reception strategy that focuses on individuals and their relationships with the community and public and private actors, based on truth, memory, and psychosocial support for healing, and generates community behavior change through support for social cohesion and dialogue.

Anticipated Project Results

Deploy the #E4C Model to help victims’ organizations increase their operational and performance capacities by 30 percent;
Support the National Board for Victims Effective Participation to propose, monitor, and generate changes in the public agenda;
Implement 26 memory initiatives that contribute to victims’ reparation and that promote reconciliation and non-repetition of violence;
Increase local entities’ institutional capacity index by 25 percent, thereby better positioning them to implement of the Public Policy for Victims and the peace accord;
Enable local and national inter-institutional coordination spaces to implement comprehensive actions that guarantee victims’ rights and that promote reconciliation and non-repetition; and
Encourage community members in ROF’s 26 target municipalities to adopt individual and collective behavioral changes needed to mitigate social stigmatization and enhance coexistence and reconciliation.