The Many Roles of Women in Healing Community

For the past three months I have been traveling throughout Kenya and Uganda exploring the role women play in community healing/peace-building.

My questions to them were:
What words would you use to describe peace?
How do you know when there is peace in your homes/community?
What do you do to build peace in your home/community?

What follows are some examples of what I was told by the women I met in both rural and urban settings. What you hear is the women singing prayers at the start of the meeting. Singing is very important in Kenya and is used as a ritual to bring calm and ease tension in difficult times. There are many different voices, many stories, many lives, many conflicts - coming together with one voice! Unity, Love and Calm - these three words were used most to describe what peace means to these women.

view on youtube at http://youtu.be/AHxXW5iPtx8

Samburu women

I will not be updating my blog for a couple of weeks as I will be spending the time pulling together all I have been learning, seeing and experiencing over the past few months in Kenya and Uganda.

In the meantime, a few more images to wet your appetite and consider the role of women in community healing

Mother and child, Samburu

A meeting with the women of Unity Village

And now I begin to wrap up my journey here, to write, to try to make sense of it all.

I have been humbled by the generosity of all whom I have met and worked with both in Kenya and Uganda. 

Asante Sana

A few women who heal community quietly

Here are some photographs of some of the women whom I have met and who offer strength and support to others. So far I have met over 550 women, many of whom have shared their stories with me and who have been kind and generous. I have spoken about some other women in other posts but these are a few more.

This young woman was nine years old when she ran away form home as her father was going to marry her, in exchange for three goats and two cows, to a man of 60 years. She walked over 100 km to join a village where she would be safe from circumcision (FGM) and a young marriage. She is 19 years old now and taking courses to learn computers.

I met this lovely strong woman before the election in the Kibera slums. She and another 6 women were educating other women on non-violence and encouraging a peaceful election. She was a victim of post-election violence, suffering tremendous human rights violations. She is mother of seven and, after being widowed, has managed to provide them all with an education.

We met at a transit stop in Kibera and then again in a meeting. She is warm and welcoming! During the election in 2007, she escaped with her life, breaking through the the bars and glass of her house windows. She hid and narrowly escaped with her life. She has survived horrendous experiences but nevertheless advocates for peace in the community that violated her.

This woman mentors women encouraging them to leave the sex trade. She became a sex worker when she was 14 in order to support her siblings. She is pursuing her secondary education at this time. She now spends her night handing out condoms to other sex workers, encourages HIV/AIDS testing for both the Johns and the women and has helped establish a medical clinic that runs from 11pm to 2am in order to care for women in the trade away form the watchful eye of the community.

 

She was imprisoned herself and now helps women in prisons by rescuing any children left behind when an arrest is made, encouraging and supporting the women while imprisoned and meeting them upon their release. She is caring for six children in her own home and is often called in the middle of the night by inmates about to be released.

These three women are all from the Gulu area of Uganda and now live in an IDP camp on the grounds of a prison in Kampala. They are supporting one another emotionally and trying to find peace after losing family, suffering through poverty, and enduring spousal abuse.

Where can a Woman find Peace in Poverty?

If a woman sees a stick for beating her rival, she will throw it away in the woods. 

(Ugandan Proverb)

How can women find peace when they have no food, little clothing, lack fresh water and access to medical treatments, have too many babies to enable them to have a restful sleep, and suffer through their husbands drink and violence? The above proverb reflects the sense of community support that seems to be throughout Uganda and acts as a way through which women survive upheaval.

The women pictured above I met on the grounds of Luzira Prison in Kampala Uganda. They are not felons, but Internally Displaced Women who were forced to flee their homes in the northern part of the country during the Kony insurgency in which over more than 20 years, 1 million people were displaced, children were recruited to be soldiers and over 100,000 people in the North were tortured and killed. These survived but left behind them orphans of their brothers and sisters, their homes, belongings and friends and landed in this place impoverished. They suffer tremendously and when asked about peace, they spoke of not finding it in their hearts as they did not have enough to feed, clothe of educate their children.

Throughout my time in Kenya and Uganda I met with over 500 women each time asking How do you know when there is peace? This day, in Luzeria Prison Jennifer spoke on behladf of the women. She explained  . . . "We can know there is peace when families are together, we are happy, children and together. You know where to sleep and your children are going to school. You are a woman needs to have something to do. The husband does not bring in much money. We cannot have enough the child works barefoot, clothes are not enough. We are just here with no place to go. We know there is problem when people sleep in the bush. We don't have peace. We the women find we have children, their parents have died, but we cannot help them. Kony's people took them in the bush and made them into soldiers. Our hearts are not content. The men feel the peace they can find is to drink. After they drink they start beating us women up. Because of worries we develop ulcers because there is no peace. There is nobody who can help us so we cannot find peace". They embody their experience of violence.

So these women, like so many others who I met, find peace is directly related to education, financial security and safety. It is found deep within their hearts and they search for ways in which to support one another and to ease their financial and domestic burdens. It seems to be through companionship, shared experience, and collaboration that they are trying to move away from their self image of woman as victim to woman as survivor: A transition that is taking time but is nevertheless a journey that is leading them towards healing their displaced community.