Youth led Community Dialogue facilitates peaceful co-existence among communities in Lakes State.

Lakes State is known for its beautiful flat lands. Unfortunately, the tensions due to cattle rustling, revenge killings and the looming threat of violent extremism make it difficult for its people to enjoy a serene and peaceful environment. Taking stock of these challenges, the UN, through the Secretary General’s Peace Building Fund (PBF) partnered with Safer World and Women Initiative for Development (WIDO) to embark on a mission of empowering youth to be champions of change and peace Ambassadors with the intent to help cultivate a culture of peace in the community. 

“As a result of the awareness creation activities, fighting between different communities is reducing and people from different Payams can interact freely” said Abraham Ater, the Chairperson of Cueibet Youth Union (CYU).

WIDO partnered with local stakeholders including youth, elders and local government to implement a range of activities that engaged up to 700 youths to foster dialogue and equip youth with conflict resolution skills. These included community dialogues between Tiap-Tiap and Pagor payams, sports events including football and wrestling, and distribution of t-shirts to payams. These initiatives strengthened connections, ethnic coexistence, and unity among the youth participants, who expressed increased awareness of the conflict issues in their communities and increased confidence in their skill sets to address them. The activities contributed to an unprecedented involvement of youth in resolving conflict within their communities. 

“Different payams can now keep cattle in one place without worries of rustling and conflict”, said William Mabir, the Executive Director of Cueibet County, adding that the fact that varying groups of people can now co-exist, simplifies their conflict resolution work. He urged that efforts must be made to ensure that the peacebuilding training and awareness-raising activities reach other areas that have not yet been covered. 

As part of the Community initiatives to promote awareness and behavior change, WIDO embarked on training youth, equipping them with negotiation, mediation, and peacebuilding skills, which they now apply when engaging worrying communities.  WIDO also facilitated awareness-raising through sports, organized social activities for people to come together, have fun, interact, and receive peace messages. One such events was a wrestling competition which brought together many people from different Payams in Cueibet County.

The sports for awareness-raising activities offered space for people from different payams to bond and appreciate peaceful co-existence among communities.

“There was no freedom of movement as people were filled with fear and suspicion for each other because of revenge attacks. The situation has changed. Thanks to the awareness campaigns and peace dialogues, people now move from one area to another without fear. Men are now farming unlike before.” said Samuel Mangar, a resident of Cueibet County. 

At the peace dialogue, community members deliberated on security issues, land disputes, migration-related conflicts such as cattle theft, competition over water catchment areas, and search for green pastures among others. Together, communities identified solutions to ensure their peaceful co-existence, thus contributing to the UN’s vision of a peaceful, inclusive, democratic, and prosperous South Sudan, where no one is left behind. 

The Support to communities is part of the initiatives under the PBF project ‘Challenging harmful and patriarchal gender norms for better mental health and peace and security among women and girls and communities in the Wunlit Triangle in South Sudan’.  Although the project closed early this year, its continued impact on helping communities to sustain are being felt.