Women are rising into roles as Peace Builders and Community Leaders

As promised last month, this report is focused on what the women who have received training as leaders and peace builders are now doing in the refugee settlements.

Women have taken on a wide range of responsibilities in peace building.  Since there are now trained peace builders in blocks throughout the settlements, they are responding whenever a potential conflict emerges to prevent escalation.  In one case, a peace builder learned of a dispute among neighbors regarding COVID and typhoid prevention measures and intervened to explain the need for them, thus mitigating conflict and preventing spread of disease.  Peace builders are also educating their communities on the African model of conflict resolution which emphasizes families and larger communities finding a way to restore relationships after someone injures another.

Women who have had leadership training have also taken active roles in developing a strategy to repair damaged homes and latrines from the flooding that occurred late in 2020.  One of the senior women, Mary Abul, first suggested a strategy and began organizing her neighborhood to implement it.

Rather than spending their scarce resources to rebuild this essential infrastructure which had originally been built with United Nations funds, they decided to collaborate with Lutheran World Federation providing the materials and supplies and community volunteers organized by Mary and her colleagues doing the work.  Their initial meeting with LWF was positive, but the women have another meeting planned to work out the details and get the work done.  As a result of the leadership they have taken, several thousand dollars of other donations will now be available to restart their co-operative businesses that had lapsed for lack of funds. 

This will also be a growth experience for LWF and the UN, which had been accustomed to refugees being passive “recipients” of their assistance, rather than active participants and innovators. The refugee leaders are determined to make this a precedent going forward.