Arts and culture have a unique power to confront difficult histories, foster empathy, and bring communities together. At Fighters for Peace, we use theatre, film, photography, and other creative practices as tools for reflection, dialogue, and societal healing. By engaging with stories, performances, and visual narratives, participants are invited to explore the human impact of conflict, express emotions, and imagine alternatives to violence.
These artistic approaches create safe spaces where individuals and communities can process trauma, recognize shared experiences, and build connections across divides. Through public events such as playback theatre, film screenings, discussion rounds, guided walking tours, and photo exhibitions, FFP leverages the transformative potential of art to contribute to reconciliation, strengthen social cohesion, and nurture a culture of peace in Lebanon.
Playback Theatre is a form of improvisational theatre where audience members share personal stories from their lives and watch them re-enacted live on stage by trained actors. Since its inception in the 1970s, Playback Theatre has become a powerful tool for community building, raising awareness, fostering reconciliation, and initiating dialogue.
Fighters for Peace implements this approach in collaboration with Laban – Live Lactic Culture, the group that introduced Playback Theatre to the Arab world in 2011. Former fighters share their wartime experiences, which are then performed by actors trained specifically for the event. The performances create an emotional and engaging space, bringing the audience closer to the ex-fighters and fostering understanding, empathy, and collective reflection.
⏰ Duration: Two hours
The performance is followed by an open discussion with Fighters for Peace members, focusing on the role of former fighters in Lebanon’s civil war and their transformation into peacebuilders and advocates of reconciliation.
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XGames is a participatory, interactive and award-winning Game for preventing violent extremism and radicalization developed by FFP’s partner NGO Inside Out/Germany. The approach of the game is to imperceptibly confront participants with methods, arguments and ways of thinking of extremist groups and to induce them to take morally questionable actions in the game. In a playful way, the participants go deeper and deeper into an extremist system across five participatory stations, from which the participants seem not be able to escape at first. After the game, the participants go through a thorough debriefing phase that connects to their own experience and feelings. In this reflection, the extremist methods experienced are deconstructed and thus made tangible for everyone, regardless of individual knowledge. In addition, the participants are ultimately given skills to recognize and resist extremist systems. Each session concludes with a discussion led by a Fighters for Peace member, allowing participants to share insights about personal and community peacebuilding. XGames has been implemented in educational settings all over Lebanon as well as in Germany.
⏰ Duration: Two hours
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Safe Not Sound is a theatrical performance that explores accountability in the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War. Its script is based on interviews conducted with ex-combatants from different sides of the conflict, adapted to reflect their lived experiences and perspectives. Implemented in collaboration with the Laban Theater NGO and was funded by the Institute for Foreign Relations (ifa) and the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the play raises important questions about transitional justice, individual responsibility, and the limits of reconciliation. The performance engages audiences in dialogue about the war’s legacies, the absence of accountability, and the ongoing impacts of structural violence. Following the performance, a discussion is held with Fighters for Peace members, where participants reflect on personal and societal responsibilities for peace and reconciliation.
⏰ Duration: One and a half hour (including discussion)
The TRANSFORMATIONS exhibition is both a visual representation of change and an oral history documentation of the journey toward peace. It features a series of photographs of former fighters today, stepping out of backgrounds of war and destruction, paired with a video archive of interviews where they share the personal stories behind their transformation.
This open-ended exhibition invites reflection on the Lebanese civil war, violence, peace, and reconciliation—topics that are often avoided in public discourse. Through the combination of striking imagery and firsthand narratives, TRANSFORMATIONS communicates a powerful message: change is possible. From an ex-fighter to a fighter for peace, transformation is achievable—and it can inspire everyone to believe in the possibility of building a more peaceful future.
With qualified psychologists and therapists, FFP provides counselling, art therapy and creative activities, to help the most vulnerable populations affected by recent wars and conflicts process trauma, express their emotions, and envision a future free from violence. Art therapy is especially dedicated to the most vulnerable group of society: Children.
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