Eyewitness - Jeanette in South Sudan

Training for peace

Jeanette Holmstrom of World Vision reports on her visit to South Sudan, which is recovering from two decades of war that has cost two million deaths and displaced four million people. Today, many communities still fight over grazing land and water supply.

A crucial part of what World Vision does as a humanitarian agency is to provide people with training in different areas relevant to the communities in which it operates. The aim is to build local capacity to enable people to improve their own lives.

Part of my responsibility in South Sudan was to conduct trainings in human rights, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (between North and South Sudan), conflict resolution mechanisms, and child protection.

The challenges

In South Sudan, there are many challenges to be faced when designing a training course. The first is that a high proportion of the population are illiterate and lack education. Secondly, the challenges in the environment (poverty, insecurity, the hot climate, logistics during the rainy season) are greater than I’ve ever met anywhere else.

But trainings in South Sudan can be so highly rewarding. I want to tell you about a specific, truly amazing training experience I had the privilege of conducting, which made me realise that all the hard work was worth it.

The classroom was in a school that World Vision was building. It still had no windows or doors, no hard ground and no blackboards – and you can only dream about electricity. However, it provided us with the necessary shade and some quietness. The use of materials was very basic: a flip chart and some markers, some plastic chairs for the participants – and our imagination.

Sand map

The participants of the training were the most influential people in their communities – the chiefs, the paramount chiefs, the leaders among the women, youth leaders from the cattle camps, spiritual leaders and members of the courts. Being a foreigner, and quite young, I felt quite humble faced with these people, many of whom were elderly and had lots of respect in the communities in which they lived.

In the Southern Sudanese culture, respect for authorities and also for people of high age is paramount. The training course was opened by the Executive Director of the County. Even if we had been working in the community for quite some time, working together with the authorities in the community is key to the training’s legitimacy.

In the middle of the training, when we got into the really exiting part of discussing the tangible conflict issues at stake in the local conflicts, such as access to grazing land and water points, a paramount chief stood up and with his stick drew a map of the area that we were discussing in the sand in front of us (the ground was not yet finished inside the building).

This was really an amazing moment to me, because in the heat of the Sudanese afternoon participants were suddenly more eager than ever to provide information and insights, pointing to the picture in the sand, which we now could share in an entirely different way than if I had drawn it myself on the flipchart.

The tribe

Participation is key, but another lesson was ‘do it their way’, and possibly ‘think creatively about what resources you use for the training design’. Learning someone’s language, or way to communicate, can break down many barriers to sharing a common understanding.

And ‘letting go’ of the control from the front can sometimes be what you need to make a connection between you and the participants. If participants feel that they can have an impact on the direction the training takes, they are likely to feel that their input matters. The training is not mine – it’s theirs!

The tribe is at the heart of people’s identity in South Sudan. And in many of these tribes, violence and revenge are seen as ways to protect the tribe and restore justice. From what we know in conflict theory about how conflicts evolve and how they can be resolved, one thing is certain: violence will never be able to solve a conflict. Knowing this is vital for understanding the path to peace.

Furthermore, dialogue can be a tool for building trust, but only if used with wisdom and understanding. Conflict resolution requires strong analytical skills, and the ability to ‘think outside of the box’.

Violent conflict

The first thing I tried to do at the start of the training was to find a common understanding of the problem we sought to deal with: namely violent conflict. I told a story of a man called Mabior who had been suffering from much pain lately.

Mabior goes to the doctor to seek his advice. Doctor Deng says that Mabior’s condition is very serious and needs an urgent operation. Mabior becomes very scared and does not know what to do. He does not want to have an operation – will he survive?

But then he gets an idea. He goes to see another doctor that he knows, and seeks his advice too. This doctor, Doctor Lul, has another diagnosis entirely. He says that no operation is needed, but that a medicine will be able to treat Mabior’s condition.

On their way home, the two doctors meet and since they know each other, they ask each other what the day has been like. They both start talking about the patient, carefully describing the symptoms of the man, until they realise that it must be the same man that they are talking about. As they continue, they discuss what is wrong with the man and how he needs to be treated. The doctors disagree entirely.

At this point, I asked the group of participants if they agreed that the two doctors had a conflict. They all agreed. When asked how the doctors could resolve the conflict however, they replied: “They fight!”

Starting points

In our trainings, I found that it was important to establish the starting points and the assumptions that our participants had at the outset of the training. Otherwise, these assumptions could become hinders to understanding and progress. In this case, the assumption was: ‘The only way to solve a conflict is through fighting’.

In order to move onwards from the ‘no other option than fighting’ thinking, I asked for some volunteers among the participants; one woman and one man to act out the following story:

Vironica lives in a village. She has a small land in which she is cultivating maize. Now, she has harvested maize, and has carried it to the city where she plans to sell it on the market. She has walked for hours carrying the maize on her back. Coming to the market place, it is still early in the morning. She finds a good spot, sits down and starts selling her maize. Business is going rather well.

Sabino wakes up from another short night of sleep. His son has a serious case of malaria and he worries about him. He takes his cassava to the market to start selling. To his surprise, someone is sitting on his chair, on his spot in the market place. He gets annoyed and angry. Who is this?

Getting closer, he sees that on the top of it all, she’s selling maize, which is generally seen as ‘nicer’ than cassava, and it seems that she’s making quite a good profit – and… hang on, thinks Sabino, those are MY customers!  He runs over to the lady actor and starts to yell at her.

Vironica's perspective

Then we played the last scene again – this time from Vironica’s perspective.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, comes a man who is looking straight at her. He looks tired and angry. He says: “Excuse me, this is my place!”

Vironica looks back at him and replies: “What do you mean? I was here first!” Sabino says: “You don’t understand. I always sit here, this is my chair, everyone knows me, I come every day!”

Vironica replies: “Well, there was no sign anywhere, how should I know? Now, leave me alone and go find your own spot!” Sabino says: “At this time of day, there ARE no more spots! Now, let me have my chair before I chase you!”

Finding solutions

I ask the group if Vironica and Sabino have a conflict. They all smile and agree. Now I ask: “How can they solve their conflict peacefully, without violence?” Everyone is silent and look at each other. Some mumble a bit. “Any ideas?” A few men raise their hands.

One suggestion after another comes: “The woman should leave. If it is the man’s place, he should have it.” or “she can stay today, and then not come back tomorrow” and similar suggestions.

We have already made one step forward – they are not suggesting use of violence. But the suggestions don’t go all the way. They don’t make use of all the opportunities present in the situation.

And all of the solutions proposed favour one of the parties more than the other. Finally, a woman in the left corner raises her hand. She says: “Perhaps Vironica could sell her maize to Sabino?”

It may sound like a bad idea. But think about it for a moment. If Vironica sells her maize to Sabino, she gets what she wanted, because she would make her profit and can go home.

Sabino, knowing the market and the customers, can probably sell the maize at an even higher prize. Also, he now becomes more attractive on the market, being able to offer both cassava and maize. In addition to all this, they might just become business partners!

This is what we in conflict resolution call an integrated solution, where both parties get what they want, and even more than that. This is the absolute optimal solution you can find to a conflict.

Community peace committee

It also belongs to the story that through showing absolutely amazing performance in the conflict resolution, all four of the women who attended this training (the other 18 participants were men) were elected into the community peace committee that was established as a consequence.

They are now engaging with the neighbouring communities to negotiate over areas that they have been fighting over for years.

Jeanette Holmstrom is a relief worker for World Vision and holds a Master’s Degree in Peace and Conflict. She has worked in many places around the world and has just returned from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where reconstruction work following the tsunami has brought an unexpected bonus – peace between government forces and rebel groups.