An interview with Endy Hagen CCA peace building consultant
When did you start working with CCA?

I first visited CCA in June 2009, and returned for work some weeks later. Since then I’ve been working with CCA’s peace building department and sometimes with CCA’s safe house team as a peace building consultant. I was seconded by the Civil Peace Service (zfd), a program run by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH  in Afghanistan.  zfd sends its staff to local NGOs in many countries. The consultants support the local NGOs in implementing their program.
Tell us something about your working experience at CCA?
My job is to build the capacity of my colleagues in peace building and non-violent conflict transformation. I support them in proposal and report writing and in drafting projects. And I help them monitor the projects and supervise their work whenever we run workshops. I’m very happy with this work, and we are doing lots of nice projects.
Last year e.g. we did a project for doctors and midwives at Balkh hospital, funded by SCA, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan. CCA’s safe house team and the doctors and midwives had faced some problems with each other. All of them are doing a very demanding job and need support. Therefore we decided not only to support our own colleagues but also the doctors and midwives. We helped them draft a reporting template for victims of family violence, and taught them on communication skills and conflict analysis. The doctors and midwives also had a chance to discuss their work and how it is connected to human rights – Islamic and international human rights. This project was helpful for the medics as well as for our colleagues. It was a great success.
The cooperation with CCA is going very well. After two years of cooperation I can say that.
Sometimes you also go to the safe house, doing workshops or visiting the safe house residents. What is your impression?
Family violence is a big issue in Afghanistan, early/forced marriages and engagements as well as general domestic violence and trafficking of women and girls. It often leads women to run away from home. As they are unable to support themselves outside a family setting, risk imprisonment or are exposed to retaliation by family members, this places them in extremely vulnerable situations. And - as in many other places in the world family violence is perceived as a purely private issue. So, Afghan women and girls often are unable or afraid to mention their problems to persons outside the family setting, not to mention to report the violations to the authorities.  
Also, Afghan society is deeply traumatized. It has suffered decades of war and civil war. There is no sense of steadiness, of predictability. Violence is a daily event, also today. In such a situation, people hold on to what seems safe and what they think they can influence. They do not go for additional changes in their life. They will not agree on people criticizing them and trying to alter their lives and perspectives.
For all these reasons, victims of family violence, their relatives, and even the perpetrators need a protective and trustworthy framework which provides protection and support, and deals with their problems in a respectful way: respectful towards the victims of violence, towards their family and towards the perpetrator. And – last but not least - respectful towards Afghan and Islamic traditions.
This is what I see CCA doing. The colleagues put a lot of effort in their work. They are always prone to mediate the conflicts, and to find solutions which protect and support everybody involved. Sometimes the safe house residents are impatient and sad because solving their problems in a good way takes so much time. But if you hurry you may cause more problems and do a lot of harm.