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Planting Peace One Community At a Time

May 15, 2006

By pwrdf

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Uganda: PWRDF supports Church of Uganda Efforts to assist Internally Displaced

Ask Pastor Sam Eibu, a peace worker for the Church of Uganda, whether he prefers sitting at his office desk to getting his shoes dusty in a village, and he will not hesitate in his answer: “When we are going to sustain peace, we need to go to the communities.”
It is in this context that the Church of Uganda, a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, has been working to address the immediate needs for food, shelter and other material items for people forced from their homes and living in makeshift camps in the region. But with a longer-term perspective, the Church of Uganda has also been working to train people at the grassroots level in creating peace.
Eibu has transferred his charge to interact with communities in seeking peace over to the Amuria peace promoters he trained early in 2005. The peace promoters have taken his advice personally and have persisted in their conflict mediation and data collection within their home communities.  Community members are beginning to trust their skills and are learning to seek them out, especially for conflicts that are not being solved through traditional means.
At times, the peace promoters refer the more difficult conflicts to the Church of Ugandaâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s peace department; they are encouraged to do so. The frequency of requests for help has continued to diminish as the months have passed and as the peace promoters gain experience.
ACT Appeal to Assist Internally Displaced
In similar ways, the Church of Uganda will continue to provide training in peace building under the recently issued ACT appeal – Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Northern Uganda.
With the support it receives through the 2006 appeal, the Church of Uganda plans to hold peace-training workshops for representatives from camps for displaced people in the Kitgum, Pader, Gulu, Lira and Apac districts of Northern Uganda. Upon returning to their camps, these representatives will share what they have learned with others in their camp. There are already many success stories from these growing peace-building efforts. 
Pastor Eibu knows the decades-long civil conflict in the broader region of Northern Uganda cannot be ended by the Church of Uganda alone, but he knows peace must be planted in small ways – in individual communities – where it will hopefully grow and spread. 
In 2006, PWRDF supported the ACT Appeal to Assist Internally Displaced Persons in Northern Uganda with a grant of $20,000. 

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