The Listening Project - Field Visit Report Angola

The Listening Project (LP) organized a two-week field visit to Angola in November 2006. Catholic Relief Services, Development Workshop, and CARE International collaborated with CDA in arranging for, and carrying out, the field visit of the Listening Project in Angola. Each of these agencies provided funds, staff and other in-kind support (hospitality, transport, etc.) to the effort, and CDA sent three facilitators to Angola to work with the staff of the agencies.

Five teams of “listeners,” some composed of an Angolan with an expatriate, and others with only Angolan staff from the participating agencies, conducted over eighty conversations with more than two hundred individuals in four Angolan provinces that were affected to varying degrees by the war: Luanda, Benguela, Bie´, and Huambo.

The Listening Teams held conversations with returned refugees, IDPs, and a wide range of residentes, people who did not flee their home territories during the war, but in many cases spent months, if not years, living in the bush. Conversations were held in a variety of settings, including but not limited to: peoples’ homes and fields; outdoor markets; IDP and refugee resettlement camps; demobilized UNITA soldier settlements and vocational training facilities; churches and NGO offices, and outdoor common spaces in a number of cities, towns and villages.