Greetings from South Sudan

Given my most recent interview with S. Sudanese, Riya Yuyada, I thought it might interest you to see this excerpt from my post to this list when I was on mission in S. Sudan in June of 2016.

Greetings from South Sudan. I am here working with UNMISS, the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan. It’s a privilege to be here, to be part of and experience the UN’s substantial peacekeeping efforts, and always so interesting to see the world from its many different perspectives.

I am currently in Torit, S Sudan, a more remote part of the country, living on a UN compound surrounded by soldiers and barbed wire. I feel pretty safe but kind of “in jail” as I am living in a container with no windows and can’t leave the compound without real precaution. Beyond the barbed wire, I am looking at beautiful mountains which the hiker/explorer in me would like to check out but can’t. I am awed by both the military and civilian personnel who are here for months, sometimes years at a time, eating the same diet of potatoes, rice, maize, collards, chicken, goat, working hard and living with a minimal amount of the regular pleasures that I take for granted.

I have been to S Sudan two times previously (in 2012 and 2103) as well as having worked with UNMISS in Uganda in 2014. With the perspective of time, it’s interesting to witness the newest country on earth finding it’s footing. Things are very unstable here. People are desperately poor and the government still polarized around tribal lines.

I personally see some signs of a few infrastructure improvements: I now have a real visa, whereas before I was just given a letter; my US cell carrier was able to provide me coverage, I have pretty reliable internet and now the aircraft in Juba (the capital) are not all UN, but mostly commercial carriers.

It’s been really moving to get to know people here, groundzero for the beginnings of humanity. So many have been profoundly affected by war. They have been soldiers, they have lost loved ones, they have seen the unspeakable. The country is still flooded with small and large arms and, as one man said, nothing will change until that gets cleaned up. As is my way, I am also closely tracking the situation of women, which seems really tough. Just among the people I am working with, there are so many bright women, and I see them struggle to be heard and seen as equal valuable contributors. A young, very beautiful Dinka woman I have come to know stands out. She is the first of four wives. She and her husband didn’t conceive and so he married again. When that couple didn’t conceive, he married again, etc. Apparently, it was unthinkable to consider that it might be he that has the infertility issue. The woman is shamed for not having conceived, and burdened by supporting all of the wives as she and her husband are the only two breadwinners. I am aware of both her desire to empower herself and the tremendous hurdles she faces to do so. The topic of race is also very close to the surface. While race certainly plays out differently in Africa than my country, I have heard so many deep feelings about color expressed. There is still so much misinformation. With one group I was working with, I noticed some real light-bulbs going off when I made the statement that, at a genetic level, I may be more similar to the black S Sudanese person I was talking to than to a white neighbor at home. Race is such an illusion and yet we humans have made it so important – and so destructive.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Riya you can do so here.

Ep 42: Riya Yuyada: Crown the Woman

Some of the more interesting assignments I have had in recent years have been with the United Nations peacekeeping missions -- four times in S Sudan and once a few months ago in the Central African Republic. It’s hard not to notice that peacekeeping missions are often set up in countries that are plagued with what some call “the resource curse” – oil that brings with it conflict and often, in spite of its value, huge income disparities and violence.

But those of us who have worked with lots of conflict situations, also notice the phenomenon of "the lotus flower blooming out of the muck", or "diamonds being formed under great pressure".

In this episode, I am honored to bring you one of those diamonds, Riya Yuyada, a 28 year old bright and sassy woman who has known nothing but war and conflict in her native S. Sudan. Riya Yuyada fled S. Sudan as a baby and grew up in an IDP (internally displaced person) camp in nearby Uganda. In spite of the challenges of growing up in a refugee camp and then later living in the midst of a very “cold peace” in S Sudan with regular outbreaks of civil war, she has grown herself into an impressive young woman and built an organization called Crown the Woman.

Crown The Woman (CREW) is a “women founded and led nonprofit, non-governmental, non-political, humanitarian and national grassroots organization that aims at empowering girls and women to ensure they harness their potential and contribute to nation building economically, socially and politically. Established and registered in 2016 by concerned young South Sudanese women who realized the need to promote meaningful gender equality and equity as well as the need to recognize, appreciate, strengthen and empower women. CREW strives for realization and respect of women’s rights, enhancement of women’s security and the prioritization and provision of women’s basic needs. CREW has a special focus on investing in young women and children as the means of securing the future of South Sudan’s women in nation building and development.

Two themes that stand out to me from this episode.

The first is what I have concluded from doing this podcast for the last few years -- that the most impactful peacebuilding initiative we can undertake on this planet is to empower women – in our family, organizational and planetary systems. In the case of S Sudan and many countries like it that have been plagued by civil war, it means women equipping themselves to be part of the peace process – go Riya!! -- and men welcoming them in to sit alongside them at the negotiating table. For more on this, please go back to Ep 31 and my interview with Dr. Scilla Elworthy, A Business Plan for Peace. Peace agreements last longer by a lot when women are involved in the process.

The second theme is interdependence. From the affluent and island continent of the United States from where I write, it’s easy to think of S Sudan as a far off land. But, of course, as the famous environmentalist John Muir said, “when you pick up anything in the universe, you will find that it is connected to everything else". While I’m grateful for the oil that has heated my house and runs my car, I’m also aware of its cost in the form of global conflict and its impact on the lives of people like Riya. It’s felt good to move off of fossil fuels to solar and wind as much as I can. An important step not just create a cleaner world but a more peaceful one.

Find Riya’s bio and transcript here.