When conflict ends, communities need to be restored.

Restorativ and RJ Organisations in Belfast have been working together to develop restorative technology.

Even when community infrastructure is lost, people tend to have smartphones…

meaning we can bring our AI driven App to post-conflict zones right away.

Learning from 25 years of experience in Northern Ireland,

we will deliver Technology Enabled Community Healing and speed up restoration around the world!

Helping Communities Heal From The Harm Of Conflict

Restorativ is raising £1m in partnership with leading Restorative Justice organisations in Belfast and the Restorative Justice Council to create a life-saving mobile app to help restore community harmony after conflict is finished

Northern Ireland stands as a vivid testament to the power of Restorative Justice in stitching up the torn fabric of communities post-conflict. Restorativ is an existing technology partner that is helping enhance this community restoration. We want to give other communities the ability to learn from and see the same life saving benefits.

The TECH project has three overlapping goals. To quantify the power of the Restorativ tool as part of the journey to peaceful futures in Northern Ireland. To use that experience and knowledge to enhance a version of the tool that can be used in other conflict and post-conflict contexts worldwide. To work with our partners to customise and localise the tool and approach for other post conflict locations:

Capture

Quantify the power of technology

Create

Enhance our technology tosupport other locations, languages and cultures

Collaborate

Deploy a scalable model so that other communities can heal

Restorative Justice is proven

“Without Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland it would be impossible for our communities to fully heal”
Debbie Watters OBE
Founder Alternatives RJ

“It is amazing to see the power of this process. Restoring our community only works when we listen, learn and transform attitudes.”
Jim McCarthy
CEO CRJ Ireland

Restorative Justice…

…Empowers people to get answers, to move forward, and to work towards lasting peace.
…Provides a valuable additional route to reconciliation that focuses on restoration, reintegration, healing, and peaceful futures.
…Gives those harmed by conflict the opportunity to have a voice and to take an active part in dealing in the ways they need.
…Helps those that have caused the harm to come to terms with what they have done, find meaningful ways to change their behavior, and help put right what was wrong.
…is already part of post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction in countries like Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Kosovo.
…it is embedded in communities and justice systems worldwide, including Finland, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Statistics show Restorative Justice works

It is 40%
more economical.

It reduces rates of reoffending by over 25%.

It provides a 60% increase in victim satisfaction.

The TECH project aims to use our unique platform to make the processes available to more of those in need by supporting access to high-quality, well facilitated Restorative Justice. We make use of new technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to help create accessible processes for post-conflict contexts, taking into account culture, custom, law, and language. We believe our three-phased approach and our wide range of expert partners with decades of experience in Restorative Justice and technological applications gives us the best opportunity to achieve this.

TECH Oversight Team

Our team brings together community and statutory agencies, charities, academics, technology partners, and others - all working towards the goal of overcoming the harms of conflict and building a more peaceful future.

Debbie Watters OBE
Founder Alternatives RJ

Debbie has been involved in the area of justice work, peace building, reconciliation and youth work for the past 30 years. She completed her degree at the Ulster University and has worked as a restorative justice practitioner for the past 25 years including the management of the first restorative justice programme in the USA from 1993-1997. She has been involved with the development of restorative justice initiatives in Northern Ireland since 1997 and played a key role in transferring her learnings from the USA into the Northern Ireland context.

Jim McCarthy
CEO CRJ Ireland

Jim McCarthy is the CEO of Community Restorative Justice Ireland and has been a Restorative Justice advocate for over 20 years in Belfast. His passion for restorative practice has seen him growing a team of over 40 professionals who work across Northern Ireland helping rebuild a traumatized community.

Chris Twyman
Founder Restorativ

Chris founded Restorativ with a simple mission. To help restore relationships with technology. He is a seasoned software executive who has focused on products that provide social impact. From employee career management to education technology and now justice technology, Chris focuses on the individual user experience in an often complex environment.

Kieran McEvoy
Professor of Law and Transitional Justice

Kieran McEvoy is the Senator George J. Mitchell Chair of Peace, Security and Justice and Professor of Law and Transitional Justice at the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He is also currently a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow (Sept 23-Sept 26) working on a project on Apologies, Political Violence and Dealing with the Past. He has conducted research in over a dozen conflicted or transitional countries contexts on topics including politically motivated prisoners, ex- combatants, victims, amnesties, truth recovery, human rights, restorative justice, apologies and the role of lawyers in conflict transition.He has authored or co - authored four books, co - edited eight books or special issues, a four volume Handbook of Transitional Justice and over seventy journal articles and scholarly book chapters.His research has garnered a number of awards including the British Society of Criminology book of the year award and the Socio - legal Studies Association article of the year, 3 times. He has held visiting professor positions at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, Fordham University Law School and the University of California, Berkeley.He has also been the recipient of a Global Law Fellowship at New York University and spent a year at Harvard Law School as a UK Fulbright Distinguished Research Scholar.

Jim Simon
CEO Restorative Justice Council

Jim assumed the position of the RJC's chief executive officer in April 2019, after serving as a standards assessor for the charity since 2014. Throughout his professional career, he has been a staunch proponent of restorative justice and has led the implementation of restorative practices in various sectors including education, criminal and youth justice. As an integral part of his work, Jim has been the chair of the Advisory Board for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Restorative Justice for the past four years. In this capacity, he closely collaborates with parliamentarians from England and Northern Ireland to promote awareness and understanding of restorative justice in different policy areas, including criminal justice and community transformation. Additionally, Jim has successfully established the presence of RJC in Northern Ireland and works closely with local community organisations to harness the full potential of restorative justice in addressing complex social issues.

Marcel Hagmann
NGO Fund Raising Expert

Senior executive director with three decades of transformational leadership experience across three continents, heading up complex programmes leading up to 70 staff. Responsible for national and international fundraising portfolios with a total of over 200 million USD raised. Senior fundraising consultant with specialist knowledge in corporate fundraising, impact investment, major gifts and foundations. Highly strategic thinker. Passionate and inspirational motivator and life-long learner. Multilingual (German, English, French, Arabic).

Capture

Capturing the value in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland stands as the critical case study for post-conflict frameworks. It has spearheaded the adoption of Restorative Justice methods, not just within its criminal justice system but also within the communities. These practices have proven pivotal in healing the wounds inflicted by conflict and nurturing reconciliation.

Anticipated cost of the section is £150k

Outcomes

1An integrated Restorativ platform that respects and responds to Northern Ireland’s unique post-conflict landscape and which offers a valuable resource for the services providing Restorative Justice in the pursuit of overcoming the harms of conflict.
2A fully worked example of the ways in which the Restorativ platform can integrate across a post-conflict region.
3Examples and evidence of best practice and learning to take into the subsequent development phase for use in other post-conflict areas around the world.

Create

Enhancing the technology

TECH works to enhance the technology by reflecting on the experiences of the deployment across Northern Ireland. Working with our community partners, we aim to use this learning to develop a framework for deployment in other conflict and post-conflict areas - technology can only work if it is relevant to its location, language, and culture, and we aim to build a delivery model that first and foremost captures the needs of individuals and communities and to customise the platform accordingly.

This includes integrating cutting edge technology into overcoming the harms of conflict which integrates Artificial Intelligence to enhance decision making in the field and provide a first line of Restorative Justice that can help speed up the restoration process.

Anticipated cost of the section is £500k

Outcomes

1Evidence base for ‘what works’ based on the Northern Ireland experiences. This will include how it works and the impacts that it has for those engaging directly in the services and those in the wider post-conflict community.
2Integrating Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence into the Resotrativ platform to provide additional functionality and automation of the non-person interactions
3Trialing the new application in one or more selected conflict or post-conflict areas

Collaborate

Platform rollout

‘Collaborate’ aims to share a version of the platform readily adapted to work in any conflict or post-conflict situation. As well as providing a base platform translated into local language and dialects, the context-specific applications will be able to take into account local custom, culture, and law. We will work with our existing partners in Columbia, Kosovo, Ukraine, and Sierra Leone to identify suitable contexts where the tool can be trialed, producing a blueprint of best practices and policy guidelines. An upgraded mobile application will be deployed directly within communities, where it matters most.

Anticipated cost of the section is £350k

Outcomes

1Work closely with local partners to develop a version of the Restorativ mobile application that can be tailored to different local contexts, taking account of culture, custom, law, and language.
2An implementation model for use in conflict or post conflict contexts that can support the roll-out of the application, including packages of training for the management of the application and for restorative facilitators, that will support the person-to-person TECH process.
3
Work with local partners to support a trial deployment in another conflict/post conflict situation, for example:

The deployment of this solution is saving lives in Northern Ireland and, with your help, it will worldwide by…

Community Reconciliation & Peacebuilding

The deployment of the Restorativ platform can facilitate deeper and more meaningful dialogues between conflicting parties, aiding in healing and reconciliation efforts.

The Restorativ platform can serve as a neutral medium that brings together diverse groups, fostering mutual understanding and respect.

Data-Driven Insights & Policy Development

The project will generate valuable data on the efficacy of restorative justice methods in post-conflict environments, contributing to the field of conflict resolution and peace studies.

Policymakers can use insights from the project to develop more informed and effective policies for conflict resolution and community rebuilding.

Scalability & Adaptation for Global Use

Success in Northern Ireland will be used to establish a model for how technology can aid in post-conflict restoration, potentially scalable to other regions worldwide facing similar challenges.

The project can lead to the development of a flexible platform that can be adapted to different cultural and societal contexts.

Community Empowerment & Engagement

By involving community members in the development and implementation of the Restorativ platform, the project intends to empower them, giving a voice to those directly affected by conflict.

This engagement can build trust in the justice system and promote a sense of ownership and responsibility towards peacebuilding efforts.

Technological Innovation & Development

The project will push the boundaries of what technology can achieve in the realm of social justice and conflict resolution.

Innovations developed through this project are likely to be applicable in other sectors where technology can be used to address complex social issues.

RestorativTECH Partners

Technology Enabled Comunity Healing

For more information contact us here