The Centre for Peacebuilding and Community Development is a non-governmental humanitarian organisation that was established during the 1994-6 Chechen War, in response to the needs of Chechnya’s civilian population.

CPCD supports numerous local organizations, and international organizations without experience of this complex region, in the above fields. It has its own staff in Russia, including three expatriates and over 200 local staff/ volunteers.

The conflict began again in 1999 and CPCD continues to do what it can to provide psychosocial and humanitarian assistance, education and peacebuilding initiatives to the victims of this deadlocked war.

The programmes run by CPCD include psycho-social rehabilitation for children, adolescents and students suffering from the stressful consequences of war, and has a peacebuilding network of youth groups and CPCD representatives in six North Caucasus republics - Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino- Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and North Ossetia. The network facilitates several training programmes in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and human rights for people in these republics and other parts of Russia.

CPCD has an educational programme in Ingushetia, running schools for 1000 Chechen refugee children, and is now building more schools with UNICEF support to provide education for a further 3000 refugees. It has its own bakery and grain mill, used to provide bread for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in western Chechnya. As one of the few NGOs with long experience of working in the region and therefore able to function in Chechnya, CPCD distributes food for the World Food Programme to 35,000 IDPs in western Chechnya each month.

It also runs a mines awareness programme in both Chechnya and Ingushetia, and has set up a Chechen section of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In Moscow and the North West of Russia, it runs a programme to support conscientious objectors and efforts to introduce a fair Russian law on alternative service to correspond to the rights of young men as enshrined in the Constitution.

CPCD tries in a modest way to address the strongly negative view of Chechens in Russian society, deepened by years of propaganda. We are presently in the process of publishing a collection of traditional Chechen fairy tales in Chechen, Russian and English to promote an understanding of the nation's culture and traditions. We are also supporting the Chechen children's dance ensemble 'Daimohk', which plans to visit Russian towns and perform to Russian audiences, promoting personal contact and cultural exchange.