Mercy Corps, an international NGO working in more than 40 countries, identified a perception gap between reformed warriors and the communities by considering the following factors: who they were, what they did before the conflict, how they were became warriors, what specific fighting roles they undertook during the conflict, what they experienced physically, socially, economically and psychologically during the conflict. This happened along the Kenya-Uganda border – Turkana and West Pokot counties of Kenya and Moroto and Kaabong districts of Uganda.
This informed PEACE III’s, a USAID-funded conflict management program that Pact Inc, Mercy Corps and a host of local CSOs implements, trauma healing interventions in conflict-affected areas along the Kenya-Uganda border.
Here are some of the lessons learned from engagement with youth, especially those who underwent trauma healing sessions.
Trauma healing plays a crucial role in supporting traumatized individuals to make changes in their lives. In Kaabong, TH enabled youth to realise their potential to do other productive work and gave them a new sense of responsibility within their families and communities. The youth experienced change which resulted in inner effect, family effect, relationship effect, behavior effect, community effect hence ACCEPTANCE and FORGIVENESS.
For positive results from trauma healing to be sustained, TH should not be delivered as a stand-alone intervention. A livelihoods component should be integrated with trauma healing to keep the youth active and economically empower them to avoid them from falling back to previous acts such as raids, livestock theft among others which were a source of livelihood to them. Supporting youth positive networks such as incom generating activities helps youth address multiple needs.
Peace actors should, however, as an elder once quipped during a peace meeting, do this while avoiding “rewarding evil behaviour” by incentivizing young people who are positively contributing to their communities. “If you give a motorbike to a bandit so that he leaves banditry, what measures have you put in place to prevent good boys from becoming bandits so that they also get a motorbike?” the old man had said.
We cannot attribute all the positive change to trauma healing. Key interventions such as Uganda government’s issuance of iron sheets and crop seeds and timing provided a fertile ground for it to be rooted. Trauma healing, however, paved way for other interventions such as education, economic activities (trade, village saving and loan accounts) and reconciliation.
Building trust between youths and governments (administrators and security agencies). This is because the youth’s previous acts may have affected the government (officers as victims, policies and laws broken) hence government administrators and security agencies may not believe that our interventions have led to true change in character and behaviour of youth. Involve the government is some interventions, organize events to enable government administrators and security agencies discuss issues and facilitate activities where both youth and government administrators and security agencies work together.
Youth play a central role in early warning and early response. Under PEACE III the youth in Kaabong District have worked with have been in position to signal and share early warning information with government and other networks.
Peacebuilding projects should also promote inter-generational exchange. Interventions targeting youth should include parents and elders, as was the case in West Pokot-Amudat where Lobore elders supported peaceful transfer of leadership from an older generation to a younger generation.
Koech Cheruiyot Denis 