Tehmina Siganporia and Jean Brown write about their Creators of Peace experiences in Sudan.

We arrived in Khartoum, not just with our luggage but with a team of five other women from nine countries. These women, also a part of the Creators of Peace network, joined us in Sudan to take part in the programme. We were a diverse group from Australia, Jamaica, the UK, South Africa, Nigeria, Switzerland and India. Equally diverse were the Sudanese women participants in both the workshops, in Khartoum, the national capital of the North and Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan. We were made to feel very welcome, were able to visit homes and share meals with northerners and southerners alike, were taken for a trip on the River Nile, saw where the Blue and White Niles converge and were enabled to live into the complexities of post war Sudan by talks with a variety of political and civil society leaders.

Dr Riek Machar, Vice-President of the South Sudan Regional Assembly, with participants of Creators of Peace Circle in Juba.

The Vice-President of the South Sudan Regional Assembly, Dr Riek Machar, opened the first five-day workshop in Juba. The workshops were for members of the Regional Assembly and National Assemblies, for academics and peace and social activists. Angelina Teny, Deputy Minister for Petroleum and Energy, hosted our team.

Sixty women (and one man) had gathered in the workshops. Together they shared their stories, while exploring the contribution women make to the perpetration and perpetuation of conflict and their responsibility to peace creation. Together these participants examined the character of peace and the character of the peace creator. The deep personal introspection encouraged through these workshops was painful for some and liberating for most. The focus was to enable participants to run Creators of Peace Circles in their respective villages and regions.

Northern Sudanese women at Creators of Peace workshop

A southern journalist shared, 'I had viewed northerners as "enemy". When my northern sisters shared their struggles I realized southerners were not the only ones who suffer.' A northerner responded, 'This is unique – the chance to sit with my southern sisters, to have real connection and connectedness. We need to know each other and visit each other. I have decided to look deep inside myself.'

One northern woman shared, 'This is the first workshop that dealt with me as a human being. There are many things I will not forget. Forgiveness is not a weakness but comes from strength.'

A member of the National Assembly in Khartoum said, 'It is so good that such a programme comes at this crucial time. Though the guns are silent, so much goes on in people, so much dysfunction. There are many peace programmes but not always deep enough to touch the souls of people…. The desire for revenge makes a monster out of you. Forgiveness restores our humanity.'

In Juba, the Vice -President of the South Sudan Regional Assembly, Dr Riek Machar, both opened and closed the workshop. The closing was televised. 'We demand that the Khartoum Government should start the process of reconciliation,' he said, 'but what about us – have we accepted that we should reconcile?'

A former deputy governor from the south, who had sworn never to return to Khartoum, overcame her bitterness and accompanied us to the north to assist with the second workshop there. After an 18 year gap, she kissed the ground of Khartoum upon her arrival. 'We have worked on peace but not on change,' she said.

North South reconciliation at Creators of Peace workshop in Khartoum

Everywhere the theme of forgiveness was powerfully relevant. As facilitators we were aware that we had no right to demand forgiveness and were only too aware of the depths of suffering that we were hearing; from domestic violence, gang rape, and child abuse, to the legacy of 50 years of war in Sudan and the anguish of inter-tribal conflict and dispossession. We were privileged to live into personal stories of all these experiences and even more privileged to witness the honest exploration of forgiveness as a key to healing and liberation and the compassionate pursuit of justice. We shared in the tears and were challenged by scenes of reconciliation and steps taken with enormous courage to reach out to oppressors.

'Forgiveness is a space we create by our own will in order to communicate with others to create peace,' said a lecturer and social activist from Dafur, who asked us to return to do a training for trainers for handpicked women from Dafur as they try to resettle them from IDP (internally displaced persons) camps back into community life. Another woman, a leader in one of the political parties, asked forgiveness of everyone because she had come to the workshop in order to waste time and escape from office problems and had not expected much. She apologized also for her superiority towards others and shared a decision to forgive five particular people in her life. 'I can’t believe the timing of your visit in the midst of my turbulence.'

The aspects of the workshops that participants constantly referred to as 'unique' were the depths reached in the sharing, the focus on the character of the peace builder with the expectation of personal application and transformation, and the awareness of the spiritual dimension in peace creation.

As one commented, 'This was unprecedented. We addressed things that are usually hidden....'

A lecturer from Afhad University shared, 'This has been very fruitful. I am well trained in many fields, but we forget about the spiritual aspect. We really need to look at personal transformation. The film, The Imam and Pastor, affected me very much. I will cherish this experience and keep it alive, in my work and in my peace bureau. I will adopt this approach of the spiritual and the personal. I have decided to revise these principles inside me...'

Angelina Teny, Minister of State for Petroleum and Energy, Sudan.

Angelina Teny our host, said, 'I wanted the women to experience the change that I have experienced through Creators of Peace and Initiatives of Change'. Frustration over the slow implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement may destabilize peace and power sharing processes at government level, but individuals are powerfully at work, personally and communally.

Jean summed up the six weeks in her own words, ‘Our journey had begun in South Africa against the backdrop of pervasive insecurity. Yet here and elsewhere we encountered an extraordinary boldness, warmth and energy. An un-cynical responsiveness marked the workshops in every country. Black, white and coloured, Muslim and Christian, Dinka, Darfurian and Nuer, women passionately engaged in nation building and peace creating opened their hearts and minds to new possibilities and a new effectiveness.’

All of us held Africa close in our hearts as we left the continent, promising to return soon to this precious land.