Women should be key people in decision-making, not just cooks at home
In the Diocese of Torit and across three dioceses of South Sudan, the Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission has launched a six-month initiative to train women as peacebuilders — recognizing that those who bear the heaviest burden of conflict have long been denied a seat at the table where peace is negotiated. The 'Together for Peace' project, developed with Norwegian Church Aid, offers women practical tools in dialogue, reconciliation, and conflict analysis, grounding local healing work in the same principles enshrined by UN Resolution 1325. It is a quiet but consequential wager: that sustainable peace is not handed down from summits, but built upward from communities, and that the people most shaped by violence may also be its most capable healers.
- South Sudan's localized conflicts continue to fracture communities along ethnic and social lines, leaving women displaced, impoverished, and excluded from the very processes meant to restore their lives.
- Despite carrying the heaviest weight of conflict — lost livelihoods, shattered families, repeated displacement — women have been systematically absent from peace negotiations and community decision-making.
- The 'Together for Peace' initiative responds directly to this exclusion, training women in conflict analysis, dialogue facilitation, and reconciliation so they can act as peace ambassadors in their own neighborhoods.
- Spanning the dioceses of Torit, Juba, and Wau, the project draws churches, government ministries, peace commissions, and civil society into collaboration, acknowledging that no single institution can carry this work alone.
- Women who attended the Torit workshop described the training as meeting a real and recognized need — their enthusiasm signaling not just gratitude, but readiness to act.
In Torit, Eastern Equatoria State, women from scattered communities gathered for a two-day workshop organized by the Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission and Norwegian Church Aid. The occasion was the launch of 'Together for Peace' — a six-month initiative built on a premise both simple and long overdue: that women in South Sudan should be equipped to lead peace processes, not merely endure their absence.
South Sudan has lived with conflict for years. Formal peace processes continue at higher levels, but the actual work of reconciliation happens in villages and neighborhoods — and the people doing that work have rarely been formally trained or formally recognized. Women absorb the sharpest consequences of violence: displacement, lost income, fractured families. Yet when decisions about peace are made, they are routinely excluded. Father John Opi Severino, who coordinates the Justice and Peace Commission nationally, opened the workshop by naming what the project is truly after — not just preventing the next outbreak of violence, but addressing the deeper fractures of mistrust, trauma, and ethnic division that outlast any ceasefire.
The curriculum covered conflict analysis, dialogue facilitation, reconciliation practices, and the root causes of violence. Participants were encouraged to carry what they learned back into their communities as peace ambassadors. Mini Hiteng Odihak of Norwegian Church Aid made the moral and practical case plainly: women who hold communities together through recovery should not be passive observers of the decisions that shape those communities.
The initiative reaches across three dioceses — Torit, Juba, and Wau — and calls for collaboration among churches, government bodies, and civil society, reflecting the understanding that sustainable peace cannot be the work of any single actor. It aligns with UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which formally recognizes women as essential to conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery.
The women who attended left describing the training as a genuine and practical opportunity. Their response suggested the project had met something real — not an abstract policy goal, but a felt gap in their own capacity to act. In a country where peace remains fragile, that readiness is itself a form of progress.
In the Diocese of Torit, in Eastern Equatoria State, a two-day training workshop brought together women from scattered communities to learn the mechanics of peace. The Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission, working alongside Norwegian Church Aid, had organized what they call "Together for Peace"—a six-month initiative designed to do something straightforward but long overdue: teach women how to lead.
South Sudan has known conflict for years. The violence has been localized, sometimes between communities, sometimes within them. The formal peace processes continue, but on the ground, in villages and towns, the work of actual reconciliation falls to people who have rarely been asked to do it. Women bear the weight of these conflicts most visibly—displacement, lost income, fractured families—yet when decisions about peace get made, they are often absent from the table. The training in Torit was an attempt to change that arithmetic.
Father John Opi Severino, who coordinates the Justice and Peace Commission nationally, opened the workshop by naming what the project actually aims to do. It is not just about stopping the next fight. It is about addressing the deeper fractures: the mistrust that hardens after years of violence, the trauma that settles into communities, the divisions that calcify along ethnic lines. The training covered conflict analysis, how to facilitate dialogue, reconciliation practices, community engagement, and the root causes of violence itself. Women who attended were encouraged to become peace ambassadors—to take what they learned back to their neighborhoods and use it.
Mini Hiteng Odihak, the program manager for Norwegian Church Aid in Torit, made a point that seemed obvious but apparently needed saying: women should not be passive in peace processes. They should be decision-makers. He noted that women often carry the heaviest load during conflict—they are displaced, they lose their livelihoods, their families fracture—yet they also hold communities together through recovery. Excluding them from the conversations that shape their futures makes no practical sense and no moral sense either. Empowering women with actual skills in peacebuilding, he argued, allows them to contribute to dialogue and mediation in ways that matter.
The initiative spans three dioceses: Torit, Juba, and Wau. It is built on the idea that sustainable peace requires everyone's participation, not just government officials or military figures. It seeks to create spaces where women, youth, and other marginalized groups can speak and be heard in decisions about their communities. The project also calls for collaboration among churches, government institutions like the Ministry of Peacebuilding, peace commissions, and civil society organizations—a recognition that no single actor can do this work alone.
The women who attended the workshop responded positively. They described it as a genuine opportunity to gain practical skills and deepen their understanding of how peace actually gets built. Many said they hoped to use what they learned to help their own communities heal. Their hope matters because it suggests the training met a real need—not an abstract one, but something these women recognized as missing from their own capacity to act.
The timing aligns with international commitments. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security explicitly recognizes that women are critical to conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery. Across Africa, faith-based organizations have increasingly advocated for women's inclusion in peace processes. In South Sudan, where localized conflicts continue to disrupt communities, empowering women to lead peacebuilding work is now understood as essential to long-term stability. The "Together for Peace" project is one concrete expression of that understanding—a six-month effort to equip communities with the tools they need to prevent conflict, manage disputes peacefully, and build societies that can actually hold together.
Citas Notables
Women possess unique experiences and perspectives that make them valuable contributors to peacebuilding efforts. Their involvement in mediation, reconciliation, and community dialogue can help address long-standing grievances.— Father John Opi Severino, National Coordinator of the Justice and Peace Commission
Meaningful peace cannot be achieved if women are excluded from discussions that shape the future of their communities.— Mini Hiteng Odihak, Program Manager for Norwegian Church Aid in Torit
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that women specifically are being trained here, rather than just anyone from the community?
Because women are already doing the work—they're holding families together, maintaining social bonds, supporting recovery—but they're doing it without a seat at the table where decisions get made. The training gives them language and method for what they already know.
What's the actual gap you're trying to fill?
Women in South Sudan experience displacement, loss of income, fractured families during conflict. They suffer the most. But when peace talks happen, when decisions about security get made, they're not there. It's a basic exclusion that undermines everything.
Is this just about representation, or is there something different about how women approach peacebuilding?
Both. Women bring experiences and perspectives that men often don't—they see grievances differently, they have different relationships across ethnic lines. But more than that, if you're trying to rebuild trust in a community, you need the people who actually hold that community together to be part of the conversation.
The training covers conflict analysis, dialogue, reconciliation. Are these skills women didn't have before?
They had intuition and experience. What they didn't have was formal training, frameworks, language to use in official spaces. The training translates what they already know into something they can use in decision-making forums.
Why three dioceses instead of just one?
Because the problem isn't isolated to Torit. Localized conflicts happen across Eastern Equatoria. If you want to change how peace gets built, you need to scale it—train women in multiple places so the work becomes normal, not exceptional.
What happens after the six months end?
That's the real question. The training plants seeds, but whether this becomes how communities actually operate depends on whether the institutions—churches, government, civil society—actually change how they include women in ongoing peace work.