This article examines the essential work carried out by community-based organizations in three municipalities of Colombia's Pacific region marked by a history of conflict and political violence: Buenaventura, Quibd & oacute;, and Tumaco. The study focuses on understanding how these entities actively contribute to fostering the emotional well-being and mental health of children, adolescents, and youth, who represent a particularly vulnerable population within these contexts. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and dialogue sessions with grassroots organizations, the analysis provides a detailed exploration of the diverse strategies and practices they implement. The findings offer an encouraging view of the role these initiatives play as fundamental pillars for promoting mental health. Their impact is especially evident in the creation and maintenance of spaces that are safe, protective, and free from violence-places that provide children and young people with the essential opportunity to express their emotions openly and cultivate meaningful connections with their communities. A particularly noteworthy contribution of the study is the identification of innovative approaches through which several of the community organizations interviewed integrate Afro-Colombian traditional knowledge with a range of artistic practices and sensitive psycho-social support tailored to local needs. This combination enables them to address complex emotional and psychological wounds in ways that are culturally relevant and effective. Overall, the study underscores the crucial importance of these community practices as agents of change in building environments that foster emotional well-being and mental health, particularly in territories deeply affected by the dynamics of armed conflict.

En este artículo se profundiza en la labor esencial que desempeñan las organizaciones comunitarias en tres municipios marcados por la historia de conflicto y violencia política en la región Pacífica colombiana: Buenaventura, Quibdó y Tumaco. La investigación se centra en comprender cómo estas entidades están activamente contribuyendo a fomentar el bienestar emocional y la salud mental de niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes, una población particularmente vulnerable en estos contextos. Por medio de entrevistas semiestructuradas y de encuentros de diálogo con las organizaciones de base, se analizaron en detalle las diversas estrategias y prácticas que implementan. Los hallazgos revelan un panorama alentador en el que estas iniciativas se erigen como pilares fundamentales para la promoción de la salud mental. Esto se logra principalmente mediante la creación y el sostenimiento de espacios que se distinguen por ser seguros, protectores y libres de violencia, brindando a los niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes la oportunidad vital de expresar sus emociones de manera abierta y de establecer conexiones significativas con su comunidad. Un aspecto particularmente destacable del estudio es la identificación de cómo varias de las organizaciones comunitarias entre vistadas integran de manera innovadora los saberes tradicionales afrocolombianos con diversas prácticas artísticas y un acompañamiento psicosocial sensible y adaptado a las necesidades específicas de la población local. Esta combinación de enfoques permite abordar las complejas heridas emocionales y psíquicas de una manera culturalmente relevante y efectiva. En el estudio se subraya la importancia crucial de estas prácticas comunitarias como agentes de cambio en la construcción de un entorno propicio para el bienestar emocional y la salud mental, especialmente en territorios que han sido profundamente afectados por las dinámicas del conflicto armado.

This study uses evidence at the local level to show how an authoritarian state, Ethiopia, undertakes community policing at the local level. On the one hand, the central state seeks to penetrate and control populations, but on the other hand, it also wants to improve the image of the police and central government. This research suggests that, at a very local level the Ethiopian state has partially achieved this despite a history of central-local tension, alongside crime and social disorder reduction. Some community policing programmes (Neighbourhood Watch Programmes, beat definition, and demarcation activities) are enhancing community agency and collective effectiveness, as well as inclusion, but positives need to be balanced by key challenges affecting the community policing empowerment process, notably political interference in the local processes and the use of local meetings to silence critical voices within the community. We examine what this looks like at the level of one community within Addis Ababa, with the aim of analysing the local nuances of how central-local power balance is still operating at the micro level within Ethiopia.

Colombia's history of political violence and internal conflict has impacted the psychosocial wellbeing of the population, particularly children and young people. Not much is known, however, about whether age-specific and culturally appropriate services exist, nor about the role of community organizations in this. This research took the city of Buenaventura as a case study in order to address this gap in knowledge. As a major Pacific coastal port, Buenaventura is of economic importance. At the same time it experiences high levels of poverty and exclusion, especially its large population of minoritised Afro-Colombian and indigenous people, and has been significantly impacted by violence during decades of armed conflict and operational paramilitary and neo-paramilitary groups. Based on semi-structured interviews and group discussions with show that these organizations develop strategies that contribute to the emotional wellbeing of children and adolescents, through enabling collective scenarios for a nonviolent daily life, supporting emotional expression through artistic practices and therapeutic psychosocial actions, and drawing on traditional practices of Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific. This article develops a deeper understanding of age and culturally informed approaches to emotionally supporting young people in violent contexts, that is of broader relevance in a context of increasing global conflict.

Experiencing violence and conflict during childhood and adolescence can significantly impact mental health, including affecting young people’s social and economic development. We lack research in conflict-affected contexts that directly analyses the perceptions and experiences of young people themselves. We do not understand enough how conflict-affected environments damage the social tissue and connectedness of young people. We need a better understanding of the resources and agency that young people have to access support for their mental health and emotional wellbeing. Based on participatory creative research methods, this article describes which resources young Afro-Colombian people living in the city of Quibdó make use of to improve and support their emotional wellbeing. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, we explore the social tissue of youth mental health. Participants mostly drew on sources of support in their immediate microsystem: family and friends; arts and sports in the neighbourhood; culture and nature; and individual coping strategies in the home. These microsystems bore signs of significant disruption as a result of conflict and violence, increasing individual and collective vulnerability. We identify a disconnect between these young people, their immediate environment (family, school, neighbourhood) and existing support mechanisms offered by the state and community organisations. To promote mental wellbeing, we identify the significance of safe spaces where young people are able to talk and connect to others and where trusted persons can connect young people to the wider exosystem of mental health care provision and to social, economic, peacebuilding and wider political processes.

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Background Conflict and violence can impact on the mental health of children and young people, who are in a crucial stage of their personal growth. Not much is known about the provision of mental health care to young people in conflict-affected areas. Community-based care can be essential, as state-led services are often scarce in conflict contexts, like Colombia’s Pacific region where this research was conducted. According to the WHO, such care is ideally provided in the form of a network of interconnected services, offered by different actors beyond the formal health sector. This article describes the relationship between the formal and community mental health systems in Colombia’s Pacific region, and identifies ways of improving their interaction. Methods Qualitative data were collected through 98 semi-structured interviews with community organisations, schools, international organisations and state institutions. These interviews aimed to identify the strategies used to promote young people’s mental health and the interactions between the different providers. Boundary spanning theory was used to analyse how different actors and forms of mental health care provision could coordinate better. Results Community organisations and schools use a wide array of strategies to attend to the mental health of children and young people, often of a collective and psychosocial nature. State institutions offer more clinically focused strategies, which are however limited in terms of accessibility and continuity. International organisations aim to strengthen state capacity, but often struggle due to high staff turnover. Although mental health care pathways exist, their effectiveness is limited due to ineffective coordination between actors. Conclusions To make sure that the variety of strategies to improve young people’s mental health effectively reach their beneficiaries, better coordination is needed between the different actors. Mental health care pathways should therefore integrate community organisations, while community connectors can help to manage the coordination between different actors and forms of clinical and psychosocial support.

Colombia has one of the longest running internal armed conflicts, which has significantly impacted the mental health of the population. This article is the first to present a national level mapping of the provision of mental health services to young people living in Colombia, through detailed review of documentation, interviews with key stakeholders and quantitative analysis of existing data on mental health and suicide. It explores the existing public mental health provision in the country, focussing on where mental health resources are concentrated and how these are implemented. We use this mapping to understand how the current mental health system in Colombia fits with international approaches to youth mental health. We show that whilst mental health policy is variously framed (biomedical, biosocial, psychologically or through human rights), Colombian policy clearly focusses on a differential approach. This differential approach shapes service provision to target support at those in need, consequently neglecting whole population level mental health support. This means that not all stakeholders were clearly articulated or included in policy and that key institutional stakeholders, such as the education sector, were not linked to implementation plans or activity. Policy approaches were also over-centralised with little cross-institutional collaboration. Youth were specifically missing from services, as was explicit understanding of the intergenerational effects and impact of conflict. This was exacerbated by unequal distribution of mental health care services concentrated in populous, urban areas away from conflict-affected regions. Suicide is the second most prevalent cause of death with 10% of population who were recorded as dying by violence, dying from completed suicide. Triangulation implies a strong relationship between suicide and poorer access to professional support in conflict-affected areas and suggests that international frameworks and policy approaches to supporting youth mental health have been insufficiently adapted for conflict and post conflict contexts.

Oxidation is a life-limiting challenge for components made from cobalt-based superalloys used in high temperature service. However, further elucidation of the oxidation mechanisms is required if new strategies to prolong service life are to be effective. In this study, the mechanism responsible for the preferential oxidation of the carbide network was revealed in the cobalt-based superalloy, Co-101. It was found that the preferential oxidation of the carbide network provided regions of low oxygen partial pressure, where gaseous chromium species could be evolved. This volatilisation resulted in enhanced wastage of chromium in the local microstructure surrounding the oxidised carbide network. Critically, this depletion of chromium from the matrix near the surface of the alloy could inhibit passivation of the alloy surface, a crucial requirement for long duration high-temperature service.

An evolving body of literature calls for politically realistic security and justice interventions that reflect the plurality of norms, power and legitimacy in the security and justice arena. In this arena, customary authorities may provide more security and justice than the state, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. They matter for peace, security, and development, but engaging them requires donors to navigate hidden power structures and illiberal traditions and ideas. In response to this complexity, this article proposes an approach for working with customary authorities - supporting fluid networks of customary, community and state agents and the political bargaining between them. Looking at a specifically conflict-affected area of the Horn, this paper provides an important survey of what we know, and what we don't know and embraces customary authorities' agency in change.

This chapter surveys around 100 years of transnational exchanges found in a wide variety of far-right politics in America and Europe. Focusing primarily on British and American connections, it maps how ideas, and shared political cultures, have repeatedly developed over this period. These interchanges have helped inform phenomena as varied as antisemitic conspiracy theory culture, varieties of fascism, variants of neo-Nazism, forms of Holocaust denial cultures, iterations of populist Islamophobia and the rise of accelerationist terrorism. It concludes that understanding the historical contexts of such transnational activism helps bring into focus some areas of particular concern today. These include mainstreaming extreme-right agendas in ways that pose real risks to liberal democracy, and the specific security risks posed by accelerationist terrorism. These are district phenomena, but both have a transnational, transatlantic dimension.

Abstract Background: This article is the first to present a national level mapping of the provision of mental health services to young people living in Colombia. It explores the existing public mental health provision in the country, with a particular focus on where mental health resources are concentrated. Methods: This research adopted a mixed methodology including: 1) a documentary policy analysis to understand youth mental health provision; 2) interviews with key policy makers and stakeholders responsible at the national level for policy delivery and implementation; and 3) a quantitative analysis of three key datasets to understand the resources available for youth mental health within Colombia. Results: We use this mapping to understand how the current mental health system in Colombia fits with international approaches to youth mental health and find that whilst mental health disorders presented a significant portion of the global disease burden, particularly in low-income countries, approaches to supporting population level youth mental health have not been adapted for conflict contexts. This paper addresses that gap through a detailed review of documentation, interviews with key stakeholders and a quantitative analysis of existing data on mental health and suicide across Colombia. Mental health was framed (biomedical, biosocial, psychologically or through human rights), Colombian policy clearly focusses on a differential approach that shapes service provision to target support at those in need, but consequently neglects whole population level mental health support. This means that not all stakeholders were clearly articulated or included in policy and key stakeholders, such as education, were not linked to implementation plans or activity. Policy approaches were also over-centralised with little cross-institutional collaboration. Conclusion: Youth were specifically missing from services, as was explicit understanding the intergenerational effects and impact of conflict. This was exacerbated by unequal distribution of mental health care services concentrated in populous, urban areas away from conflict-affected regions. Suicide is the second most prevalent cause of death with 10% of population who were recorded as dying by violence, dying from completed suicide. Triangulation of this data implies a strong relationship between suicide and poorer access to professional support in conflict-affected areas.

Physical theories that depend on many parameters or are tested against data from many different experiments pose unique challenges to statistical inference. Many models in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology fall into one or both of these categories. These issues are often sidestepped with statistically unsound ad hoc methods, involving intersection of parameter intervals estimated by multiple experiments, and random or grid sampling of model parameters. Whilst these methods are easy to apply, they exhibit pathologies even in low-dimensional parameter spaces, and quickly become problematic to use and interpret in higher dimensions. In this article we give clear guidance for going beyond these procedures, suggesting where possible simple methods for performing statistically sound inference, and recommendations of readily-available software tools and standards that can assist in doing so. Our aim is to provide any physicists lacking comprehensive statistical training with recommendations for reaching correct scientific conclusions, with only a modest increase in analysis burden. Our examples can be reproduced with the code publicly available at Zenodo.

This article explores how transitions produce non-linearity in Sierra Leone's security and justice programming, as it unfolded from the late 1990s and onwards starting in open conflict. Transitions have received limited detailed analytical consideration in the literature on interventions because they are mundane and inevitable, and therefore taken for granted. However, they definitively condition how programmes evolve. We show that transitions can be seemingly small as well as comprehensive, but commonly have unpredictable, hidden and often unmanageable transformative effects on the trajectory of security and justice programmes. To conceptualize the logic of transitioning, ritual theory - and specifically liminality that is a central component of rites of passage - is used to capture the inherent diffuseness and unpredictability of transitioning. Transitions in programming are liminal moments, 'neither here nor there', and as such characterized by ambiguity and indeterminacy. The ambiguity, and importance, of transitions stems from their potency to disturb the direction of programming, requiring the suspension of routine, which internationally funded programming is notoriously ill-suited to deal with. Empirically, the article looks at three types of transitions in Sierra Leone: (1) war to peace; (2) turnover of staff; and (3) elections leading to change of the party in power.

Security-sector reform (SSR) and rule of law (ROL) approaches to international intervention have become a major element of the international community response to conflict since the 1990s. This international architecture that surrounds SSR and ROL privileges a particular form of knowledge that reflects a technocratic approach to security. This is reflected in the technocratic process of policy and also in the wider literature. Research into the literature itself shows that there are three core themes that dominate: state-centric approaches, technocratic approaches, and approaches to local ownership. These comprise a current, linear approach to SSR and ROL that ignores much of the critical literature on peacebuilding. Incorporating critical approaches could provide an alternative approach to SSR and ROL in terms of incorporating nonlinear underlying features, including a better understanding of institutional politics, an emphasis on process rather than structures, and analysis of the hidden politics of security and legal reform.