Lasting peace: a conversation with Manahil, Amala Learning Facilitator, for International Day of Education 2024
Today is International Day of Education, and the theme for this year is “Lasting Peace”. Here at Amala we know a thing or two about both international education and peace.
Since we launched our Peacebuilding in Your Community course back in 2018, it has been run 40 times as a Changemaker course in 14 locations across 7 countries, and as part of the learning programme for the Amala High School Diploma. Over a thousand young peacebuilders have graduated from the course, developing projects which contribute to building peace in their communities.
Manahil, Amala Learning Facilitator for the Amala High School Diploma in Kakuma Refugee Camp, is here to tell you more about what the course entails and why peacebuilding is such an important skill for young refugees to have.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I’m Manahil, I’m from Sudan, and I’ve been living in Kenya for 17 years. I started working with Amala in 2021 and have facilitated three classes so far: cohorts 1, 3 and 4 of the Amala High School Diploma Programme. I have facilitated almost all of the 10 Diploma courses including Peacebuilding in Your Community. I’m also a student at University of the People, studying Business Administration. I’m passionate about giving back to the community through entrepreneurship and leadership, and I recently launched a CBO called Blossoms of Hope. We work on issues that my community is facing such as gender based violence, and offer livelihood programmes. Refugees come from challenging backgrounds and our services will offer them hope.
Can you give us an overview of the Peacebuilding in Your Community course and what you do?
Amala’s Peacebuilding in Your Community course empowers students to promote lasting peace: inclusive peace and inclusive communities. When we look at the background of where we come from as refugees, we all come from countries that have gone through wars. Often, when we ask students what they want to do, they say, “promote peace in our communities”. So the Peacebuilding course does that. Students explore themselves as individuals and their group identities. We also look into negative and positive peace, and explore the barriers to peace. What is stopping communities from achieving peace? Through the course, students learn to embrace diverse cultures.
Can you tell us a bit more about negative and positive peace?
I’ll give you an example to illustrate negative and positive peace. There is a certain community from South Sudan in Kakuma Camp which has gone through lots of conflict.
When they are playing sports, for example, they fight. Community leaders come to intervene in the conflict. When fights escalate and people go to jail, community leaders might step in and pay for their release. But it becomes a recurrent issue, because they haven’t really reached a truly peaceful resolution.
Positive peace is about putting each others’ differences apart and agreeing to build peace together. It’s not temporary, it is lasting.
What is the thing that stands out to you the most about this course?
It was the overall content of the peacebuilding course that drew me to it. I was surprised to find out that it was a course designed to promote lasting peace. What resonated with me the most is that most of us [facilitators and students] come from backgrounds of conflict. The course enables our youth to talk about peace. We deliver courses that can help them work towards creating sustainable peace and communities.
When they go back to their countries, they will be able to say, “we learnt peacebuilding at Amala”. They will be able to use the strategies to solve tribal conflicts that our community members are going through. These communities will benefit from our students’ intervention, as they will be able to solve the conflicts which are going on.
What change do you see in students after they have finished the Peacebuilding in Your Community course?
I see the students change their behaviour. Most of the students come from a background where fighting is normal. Where saying sorry to someone implies you’re a coward. After the course, students are able to change their behaviours. I had one particular student who came from a really difficult and conflict-ridden background. From there he was able to design a project on peacebuilding, and wanted to promote lasting peace in his community by bringing together community elders and leaders together to discuss promoting peace in their communities, and to build an awareness of lasting peace.
Amala’s Peacebuilding in Your Community course is run as part of the Amala High School Diploma, as well as a standalone Changemaker course, run through mission-aligned partners around the world. Click here to read more about the course.
This interview is the first in our series about Amala Learning Facilitators. To make sure you don’t miss out on future stories, follow us on social media (amala_edu on X and Instagram, Amala Education on Facebook and Linkedin) and sign up to our newsletter.