Nalyanya and 12 others from Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland became the newest graduates of the Women’s Peacebuilding Leadership Program (WPLP) in December, when members of two classes received their graduate certificate in peacebuilding leadership.

They join 29 previous graduates from Africa and the South Pacific who are making similar advances and repairing the fabric of their communities, thanks in large measure to the tools gained since the program started in 2012 at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř‘s .

Funding for WPLP is primarily provided through USAID Kenya and East Africa and by international development organizations that administer USAID grants.

“All of the women are doing amazing things in different sectors of the peacebuilding field,” WPLP acting director says. “They are all having big impacts in their communities and thinking about ways to scale it up and make larger systems change. They are just all really impressive women.”

The women are selected through an application process that seeks candidates with leadership skills and practical experience as well as a platform from which to engage their communities, Werner says. Studies begin with five weeks at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in Harrisonburg, followed by coursework and a hands-on conflict analysis and development of an intervention plan in their home country. A mentor walks with them through the program.

Participants in WPLP often come from different tribes, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds but find common ground in the peacebuilding work.

“That’s one of the benefits of having the women together as a cohort,” Werner says. “They get to talk about those things. It’s pretty inspiring. They put those differences aside for the larger interest of their country. They want a peaceful Kenya or a peaceful Somalia, and peace for people in general. They learn from each other and begin to think about the ways that divisiveness has been created.”

Beyond expanding their leadership skills and bringing about change in their communities, the women also gain in confidence and increase their sphere of influence, Werner says.

Seven of the 13 women were present for the official graduation ceremony along with representatives from MCC Kenya, USAID Kenya and East Africa, and community members. Several mentors, friends and family members also attended, including Nelson Makanda, deputy general secretary of the All Africa Council of Churches, and Faustin Ntamushobora, former director of African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM).

Also present were SPI attendee Samson Sorobit and two women with long ties to CJP and to the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program: Tecla Wanjala, MA ’03 [read more about in Kenya] and local partner Doreen Ruto, MA ’06, who brought staff and board members from her organization, (DiPaD).

WPLP’s fourth class, with eight women from Kenya, will begin in May. Applications will open for the fifth class, with eight women from the Horn of Africa, in the fall of 2016, with coursework to begin in May 2017.

Editor’s note: As this article was being published, the CJP community learned of Doreen Ruto’s untimely death on Jan. 21, 2016. She is remembered with both joy and sadness in .

In 2008, the two had worked together for several months to resolve an armed conflict between rival clans in Mandera, a region in extreme northeastern Kenya along the Somali and Ethiopian borders. After Sorobit, a major in the Kenyan Army, was redeployed elsewhere that fall, Hassan remained in Mandera to work with the women’s group she founded there. They hadn’t seen each other since.

And then, there they were, reconnecting with shock and surprise halfway around the world at the 2012 .

“It was really a blessing to meet him here. I couldn’t believe it,” said Hassan, who has worked as an advocate for women’s empowerment, peace and development in her hometown of Mandera for more than a decade.

“I had no idea she’d be here,” added Sorobit.

Disputes over access to water and pasture are a recurrent source of armed conflict in the arid region surrounding Mandera. With each new outburst of violence, Hassan became increasingly disturbed at the roles women played in the conflict by encouraging their sons and husbands to fight. At the same time, it became clear to her that the burdens of the repeated violence – sorrow, poverty, hunger and instability – were largely borne by women and their children.

In 2000, she founded a group called Women for Peace and Development to address these issues in the region and to advocate for women’s involvement in community decision-making. Hassan’s group is now known as the Horn of Africa Women’s Empowerment Kenya Agency (its acronym means “women” in Somali, the main language spoken in Mandera).

Sorobit arrived in Mandera in early 2008, assigned command of an army unit charged with providing security for civil authorities in the region. He first met Hassan when she asked to speak on behalf of women in the community before the district’s security committee. Afterwards, the two collaborated on several related initiatives to resolve the area’s continuing conflicts. Through her organization, Hassan helped ease tension that existed between the community and Sorobit’s soldiers, resulting in greater trust and more effective collaboration between them. Sorobit also said Hassan played a key role in a disarmament project, one of their successes in Mandera during the brief time they worked together.

“[Our work] was a milestone in creating peace and stability in that region,” Sorobit said.

Sorobit joined the Kenyan military in 1992 and has been deployed throughout Kenya and on peacekeeping assignments in several other African countries. He said his experience in Mandera made clear to him the importance of cooperation with traditional systems, local leaders and civil authorities while on duty in a new region.

Though not attending SPI on official duty with the Kenyan military, Sorobit’s commanding officers are supportive. He plans to apply concepts from SPI – building on his earlier experience in Mandera – to his future assignments, he said.

Hassan hopes the program will provide her with a new academic perspective on to augment her 12 years of practical work in the field. She is one of 12 women who came to SPI as part of the first cohort in the ’s new .