Peace Promoters
One of our partners has used MCC money to train “Peace Promoters.” These people were selected by their parishes as respected persons to receive the training and help resolve conflicts in the community peacefully. They carry out peace building activities such as reconciliation, sensitization of communities and mediation. Peace is integrated with development as a means of comprehensive or holistic peace building for social change. We visited with the group in Amuria—in the eastern part of the country. The group includes persons in their late-twenties to those in their sixties. We ate lunch with them and several told us their stories.
One example: One man had been elected as a local government official. One of his jobs was to settle disputes in his area. The common way for an official to settle a dispute is to award the settlement to the party that gives him the most money! So this is what he did. He also settled disputes in his own home by beating his wife. After he received the peace training, he learned to listen to both sides of a dispute and to ask questions—both in community disputes and in his own home.
The Peace Promoters sang some songs for us and performed one of the dramas they use in teaching communities about peaceful ways of solving disputes. “A man and his wife are cultivating their land and gradually go farther and farther on to their neighbor’s land. There is anger! However, the neighbor finally contacts a Peace Promoter who comes, leads discussion, and a compromise is found.”
