The Ministry of Peacebuilding, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), trained 20 local peace committee members on peace and conflict management at Turalei Payam of Twic County in Warrap state.
The training, which lasted for ten days, was concluded on Friday. It aims to equip the local peace committee with knowledge and skills to tackle conflicts within the community and neighbouring counties.
Achol Achol, a participant who also doubles as chairperson for the peace committee, told Radio Tamazuj that the training benefited her and that she can now solve problems in the community.
“We have started with leadership and learned that a good leader should listen to his people and not ignore their demands. They trained us also in conflict management,” said.
“In conflict management, the first thing we need to do in our society is to find out the root cause and then try to solve it like the issue of Aneet between Twic and Abyei started as very small, and people ignored it until it became a violence” she added.
Victor Manut, another participant, said the training taught them how to move from a place where communities differ and settle cases to maintain peace in the county.
“We need peace within our community, and the training gave us the knowledge to be able to restore peace in Turalei by going from place to place telling people about the importance of peace so that people don’t die anyhow, and that is by sitting with conflicting communities and solve problems,” he said.
Bek Dhuorjang, the lead facilitator, said the training will enable peace committee members to enlighten the community about the importance of peace and how to solve their issues.
“More importantly, the training touched on conflict management at the community level because peace cannot prevail in the country when there is conflict at the grassroots level,” Bek said.
Lucia Bassa, the UNDP representative, urged the participants to double their efforts and create awareness among the community about peace and help them how to cope with stress and trauma.
She said the organization will continue supporting local peace committees in the state.”As UNDP, we will still supporting local peace committees like this recently formed committee to solve some community problems,” she said.