Twenty Young people and professionals from Juba in South Sudan have vowed to be in the forefront in promoting dialogue as a way of bringing lasting peace in their beloved country. Speaking at Good Shepherd Peace center in Juba after participating in a two day training on Youth leadership, the young people have also promised and taken a commitment to mobilize more youth to be instruments of peace and new leadership in South Sudan.
The two days youth training was a moment to share together on various topics that can help them bolster peace in their country. The program spearheaded by two young men Mille Andrew and Thomas Wani who participated in the First Summer School that was held in Nairobi, early 2019 was the first one to happen under the umbrella of Together for a New Africa.
During the training, Mille Andrew had the opportunity to share with all participants on the first summer school on youth leadership that he participated in Nairobi Kenya. The training in Nairobi brought together over 100 young people from all over East and central Africa.
The training In Juba focused on open forums and dialogue. However, there were moments where lectures were given by invited professors from both South Sudan and Europe who came to take part in the training.
During the first day of the training, Professor Peter Gumbo gave a lecture on Leadership and Politics. This was a special moment in which all participants were introduced and taken into depth about African leadership and politics. In his presentation, Professor Gumbo challenged the participants to go out and practice in being those new leaders that South Sudan and Africa at large needs in politics.
Moreover, on the first day of the training came in Professor William Lemor who took participants through the role of youth in the modern society. It was during this moment that professor Lemor shared on some ways on how the youth can be engaged or engage themselves in building their nation.
Communication being a vital and key component in leadership, Mr Michele Zanzucchi a well known Journalist in Italy shared a topic on Communication and leadership. Moreover, Mr Zanzucchi gave another lecture on leadership and spirituality.
Finally, a catholic priest, father, Thomas Iga gave various lectures on Moral ethics and understanding ethnicity, community, identity and their effects in the developing countries. In addition he engaged the participants in an open dialogue on the same topic during which the topic was deepened more.
Father Basilio Lukundu gave a lecture on peace building and conflict resolution. Participants were taken through how to build peace and ways of resolving conflicts among them and in the whole society at large.
On Human rights, it was another golden opportunity for participant to deepen on Human rights, how they can be directly and indirectly be involved. Corruption being a great challenge in our continent, Maurice, Okwera an advocate took the participants through various ways of understanding corruption and its effect in the developing countries.
South Sudan officially known as the Republic of South Sudan gained independence from the Republic of the Sudan in 2011, making it the most recently recognized sovereign state.
In December 2013, a political power struggle broke out between President Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar. Numerous ceasefires were mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and SPLM – in opposition and were subsequently broken. A peace agreement was signed in Ethiopia under threat of United Nations sanctions for both sides in August 2015
More than 4 million people have been displaced, with about 1.8 million of those internally displaced, and about 2.5 million having fled to neighboring countries, especially Uganda and Sudan.
