Graduates to boost reconciliation efforts in S. Sudan
October 31, 2014 (JUBA) – A workshop organised by South Sudan Committee for National Healing, Peace and Reconciliation (CNHPR) successfully ended with about 80 “battalion of peace” graduates.
Speaking at the closing of the one-month training held in Yei county of South Sudan’s Central Equatoria state, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, said participants will boost reconciliation efforts in the country.
“Peace in our country is paramount. However, building the unity of our people will be challenging. It needs commitment and it needs courage,” said Deng, also the CNHPR chairperson.
“We are a big group; a battalion of peace and we can make peace in this county if we make a step together and we listen together,” he stressed.
The South African-based Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) facilitated the training, which brought together 76 participants from the country’s 10 states as well as representatives from Abyei region.
Established by president Salva Kiir in April, the CNHPR is regarded as key in the ongoing reconciliatory process that will run for three years.
Organisers admitted that a lot was achieved during the Yei training.
“We came here carrying a lot of wounds, but I have seen our diverse participants move closer to one another in the last four weeks,” said Bernard Suwa, the CNHPR secretary general for CNHPR.
“I challenge you, as you return to your states, be bold, courageous and use the new perspective you have learnt here to show love to all South Sudanese. You can change the culture of war and revenge because there is a new way, a new paradigm of building our new nation and this is through love and forgiveness,” stressed Suwa.
The committee, at the end of the training, would move to the various states with a plan to train more 50 peace mobilisers in every region.
Those trained are expected to engage with grassroot communities at payam levels, to continue the “shared journeys of listening and dialogue” by recording people’s voices as well as needs.
(ST)