The South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) and The Netherlands peace agency, Pax, have launched a booklet to promote peace across the nation.
Titled, Active Non-Violence, the booklet is designed to empower church leaders in promoting peace.
It is the first of its kind in South Sudan and aims to provide practical guidance for fostering reconciliation within communities.
The initiative follows decades of conflict in South Sudan, including a civil war that erupted after the country’s independence in 2011. Recognizing the urgent need for a new approach, church leaders convened in Kigali, Rwanda, and pledged to pursue non-violent conflict resolution. Pax, under the church-led Action Plan for Peace (APP), was then tasked with developing the essential resource.
Pax Country Director Emmanuel Ira said the purpose of the publication is to contribute to just peace.
“We want to break this culture that most people think that South Sudanese are violent communities. This is the beginning that this tool is going to help to break this perception of violence,” Ira said
He emphasized that violence is a learned behavior, shaped by the environment, and that the booklet offers a path to changing this perception.
Ira stressed the timeliness of the launch, given the country’s history and the current leadership’s commitment to peace.
The Moderator of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church of South in Sudan and Sudan, James Makuei Chuol, underscored the church’s long-standing commitment to peacebuilding, citing their involvement in past conflicts and the nation’s independence movement.
Chuol detailed how the booklet stemmed from a 2022 decision by church leaders in Lokenya and was further inspired by the 2023 Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage, where Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, encouraged them to embrace non-violence.
“This booklet is not just for reading, but for implementation. Non-violence is not passive, but is active,” Chuol said, calling on the church leaders at all levels to adopt and implement its principles.
The General Secretary of the South Soudan Council of Churches, Tut Kony Nyang Kon, emphasized that the booklet’s message is for everyone, not just the church leaders.
“All of us are called…to intensify, to call our people not to react, to take the law into their hands,” Nyang Kon stated.
He acknowledged the prevalence of violence in communities and called for a rejection of vengeance in favor of love, forgiveness, and dialogue.