Introducing HOPE 2012

Introducing HOPE 2012

The Horn of Africa Peace Engagement (HOPE) is currently running a campaign under the title: Make Peace a Reality in the Horn of Africa.

HOPE’s main objective is to seek a regional solution to the lack of peace in the Horn of Africa. Although every country in the region has its own set of complicated socio-political makeup and history, many of the current and historical conflicts share interrelated causes and hence interrelated solutions.

Hope’s Eritrea Group is made up of young Eritreans with a range of experiences and a mix of expertise, we hope to utilise as our contribution to making peace in the Horn of Africa a reality.

HOPE’s year long, youth led, campaign aims to garner enough support from citizens of the region who pledge to also work to make peace a reality. This consensus across the peoples of the region will be used to compel national leaders as well as regional and global organisations to enact the peace that continues to elude millions of people in the region.

Young people from all six countries (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Republic of South Sudan, Somalia and Sudan) have started their youth led campaigns to garner support from their respective communities and diasporas. 

The  main objective of our Eritrean HOPE campaign, is to construct the architecture for peace within the Eritrean communities; so that when our national leaders and global and regional organisations are asked to enact the call for peace they will become aware of the consensus and hence a constituency for peace.

The main Elements of the campaign are to:

•    identify 500 Eritreans who are willing to support the HOPE Covenant
•    create field visibility for HOPE, and the Covenant, amongst the Eritrean public
•    maximise effectiveness of the campaign by aligning it to the regional campaign

As our covenant indicates we would like every Eritrean to rally behind the call for peace in Eritrea and wider region. To introduce HOPE, our Eritrean Group and our Covenant we have developed this short FAQ document, please feel free to contact us for more information.

1.    What is the Horn of Africa Peace Engagement (HOPE)?
HOPE was launched, in Dec 2009,  following a brainstorming conference, for a number of academics, intellectuals and activists from right across the Horn of Africa. The conference was organised by Eritrean Citizens for Peace (ECfP) in Atlanta Georgia.  The Atlanta conference was a follow-up to two previous Eritrean gatherings in London and Brighton and was aimed to stimulate a free flow of ideas to break the logjams and festering conflicts in many countries in the area.

Together citizens from the six countries discussed a range of issues and agreed that the concerns around lack of peace is a regional problem that will require a regional solution and decided to organise themselves around the quest of regional peace.

A follow up meeting in Djibouti launched a youth led campaign that aims to garner support from citizens of all six countries and their diaspora communities with a view to using this to compel national, regional and international players to enact the peace that is a call from citizens of the whole region.

The Djibouti conference also developed the covenant that we are asking all citizens to sign up to as our pledge to make peace a reality in the Horn of Africa.

For more information please visit: http://www.hopehorn.org/

2.    Could you tell me more about the covenant?
The covenant contains our aspirations to making peace a reality in the region. It outlines the sorry state of our region and how far removed this reality is from the aspiration of our respective peoples, it then states our determination to address the real causes of conflict in the region and our call for everyone to join in the effort of : Making Peace a Reality in the Horn of Africa.

Please find a copy of the covenant here: http://www.hopehorn.org/conferences/djibouti-20111/163-horn-of-africa-peace-covenant

3.    How about the Eritrea group?
As mentioned above the current Eritrea Campaign Group is made up of seven young people five of whom live in Africa. We are all established activists, identified for our potential to support the campaign.

We are currently contacting key Eritrean organisations to garner their support. Following this we will be approaching individuals for their support too. We aim to write more articles on Eritrean websites, give interviews to radio programmes and hold online meetings.

For more information please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

4.    And then what? What will become of all those people who support the covenant?
This depends on their level of commitment, the opportunities they have to work for peace and ultimately their desire to see peace become a reality in the region.

We hope that many who are committed to seeing peace become a reality will become peace-activists to work with us and others in the region, suggesting ideas and utilising networks and opportunities to promote the need for a regional solution to the lack of peace.

At the very least by signing up to the covenant and making an organisational or personal commitment to work for peace people would help us demonstrate to leaders that the peoples on the Horn of Africa are committed to peace and are working to make that a reality, both on a personal level and corporately too.

5.    Will all this make a difference?
We believe it will, and we are determined to give it our best shot. Our experiences in Djibouti (as was the experience of those who attended Atlanta), have shown us that there is a great deal that we Horn of Africans share as well as a lot we really need to learn about each other, we are also convinced that without peace there will be no development in the region, be it economic, social or political development.

Having said this we are also always open to ideas that enhance our call for regional peace and would like to hear from you if you have any additional suggestions.

Please contact us on: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

6.    What else can I do to support the campaign?

If you are a member of an Eritrean organisation and you think your organisation would welcome the opportunity to consider the covenant and sign up to it; please send us the name, and contact details of your organisation and we will send you more information. Mark your email: Organisational Sign Up and send it to:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you are an individual and would like to support the covenant you can either do it online by visiting the link below: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/make-peace-in-the-horn-of-africa-possible-today/#13304371518701&action=udata&udata=false

Or send us an email marked: Individual sign up on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will send you all the information you need.

Thank you
HOPE 2012 Eritrea Campaign Team

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