SSWIPE: Southern Sudanese Women's Initiative for Peace Education

The Southern Sudanese Women’s Initiative for Peace Education (SSWIPE) is a project that seeks to facilitate peacebuilding in South Sudanese communities by engaging women as community members, utilizing dialogue to find common ground, and teaching peace education while meeting students’ practical needs. Through a partnership with Abukloi School, SSWIPE will be helping to provide jobs to local women in Rumbek, South Sudan who are willing to cook meals for the students at Abukloi. This will encourage students to get an education, while providing a space to learn about the culture of South Sudan from women’s perspectives. SSWIPE will also be working with teachers at Abukloi to facilitate the creation of a peace education curriculum tailored specifically to the culture and conflicts in Rumbek. The goal of SSWIPE is to discern the connection between women and sustainable peacebuilding in South Sudan and to facilitate the development of a peace education curriculum that helps to build a transformed community.

I created this project because my life has been impacted by the Second Sudanese Civil War. One of the Lost Boys of South Sudan, Joseph, lived with my family for several years while attending college, and his stories challenged my worldview and helped me to see the causes and culture of conflict through a new lens. The Lost Boy community here in the US often discuss the importance of education and the need for a space to explore the common ground shared by the various political parties and tribes in South Sudan. Joseph once told me that if women were to come together and advocate for peace, “nothing could stop them.” As a student in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, I have been given the resources to discern whether or not this is true and, in some small way, to be able to facilitate the development process for Southern Sudanese communities who want to end the cycle of violence and deal with conflict constructively.

I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference last month for this project, and I am looking forward to the chance to learn from members of the international community who have implemented projects like this one.

The first step in this process for me in South Sudan is to learn as much as I can about the people and the culture of Rumbek. I will be traveling there in June to conduct interviews of women, teachers, and community leaders in the area to garner a clearer sense of the elements of peace education and conflict resolution work that best suit this community. I am hopeful that this research process will help me to stay mindful of the small role I have in the larger vision of this project. I am bringing with me only the specific skill set I have learned at S-CAR, with which I hope to facilitate this work. At the beginning of this project it was easy to make assumptions about what is needed or wanted in Rumbek, but I am swiftly realizing that is not the space I should fill. I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn from the people of Rumbek and to build on the insights already provided by theorists and practitioners in the field.

At first I was intimidated by the variety of directions in which this project could go, but I now feel a sense of excitement about the possibility of authentic collaboration with the Rumbek community in designing it. Already, I have learned so much about what it means to be working in a community. I thought initially that I needed to have answers, but I am learning that I must first be curious and trust that the answers will come through research and partnership. I am grateful to have the opportunity to put some of the skills I have learned at S-CAR to work and to try to give back to Joseph and the rest of the Lost Boy community who have taught me so much.

### Picture 2: Welcome to Rumbek. Photo: Flickr User More Altitude.