South Sudan Peace promoters receive bicycles
Peace committees from the five Bomas (villages) of Otogo Payam in Yei River County, South Sudan have often struggled to access many areas in their peace-building efforts. But this is set to change after they were given five new bicycles to facilitate their movement.
During the official handover of the bicycles at the Payam offices, David Juma, AAH South Sudan’s coordinator for the Capacity Building for Post-conflict Reintegration (CAPOR) Project retaliated the need to work as a team.
“Peace-building is not only the responsibility of the national government. It is a collective responsibility that should also involve grass root level leadership,” urged Juma.
He said the project gave out the bicycles to support the peace team to carry out their activities in the community by making it easy for them to move from village to village.
Emmanuel Asum, a peace committee representative from Goja Boma, said the bicycles given to them have eased to the trouble of moving too far areas. “We were facing difficulties in resolving conflicts in far places. But now it is easy to go there to help our people resolve their disputes,” said Asum.
Otogo Payam administrator, Samuel Luate, appealed to the peace committee members to use the bicycles for project activities.
Luate urged AAH South Sudan to continue supporting communities so that peace and development are realised at all levels.
The bicycles distribution initiative kicked off in the five bomas of Otogo payam in mid-October 2015 and is set to be rolled out in 19 other Bomas in the project’s operational areas.
The CAPOR project strengthens communities’ capability to participate in peace building and reintegration process. This is through the use of concerts, drama, puppetry fine arts, music, movies and theatre to spread awareness. The project operates in the Western and Central Equatoria States of South Sudan in Maridi, Mundri, Wonduruba, and Otogo respectively.