John Long is one of the refugees championing peaceful co-existence of refugees and host communities under the Oxfam and partner peace-building project. The project supports South Sudanese-led Organisations and Ugandan Community Based Organisations in refugee hosting areas to build peaceful coexistence with refugees and the host communities.
One of the challenges in the refugee settlements is struggle for resources which usually result into clashes between the refugees and host communities. YETA carries out trainings for the communities in aspects of women rights, gender equality, how to cooperate within families and homes, peace building – understanding conflict, and engaging in mediation or dispute resolution relating to incidents of violence among others.
Through the YETA trainings, Long is now a bridge of peacebuilding. “I am able to help in mediation to resolve different conflicts in my community and can ably settle issues.”
““I had a case to handle in my neighborhood, at a home that had a lot of gender based violence (GBV) issues and I realized it was due to drug abuse so with the little knowledge I got out of this project’s training, I intervened and helped them resolve their issues permanently and to date the home is peaceful,””
He continues to help advocate for the equal treatment of women and is now a male champion and leads a group of other men who are committed to the cause of ending gender inequality.
“I am one of the men struggling to see women and men being able to share issues and see how best we can change the community’s cultural beliefs about women since I live in a community that still believes that women shouldn’t hold key leadership positions.” John has also set his sight on encouraging more men to fight against inequality.
Key to this will be coming up with strategies to handle conflicts in the homes of his community members, encouraging men to attend antenatal services with their women and more importantly, supporting women to stand for key leadership positions like those of the Refugee Welfare Councils (RWCs).
“For most of my life, I had no respect for women. I did not believe or feel that a woman could make a good decision, or take up any leadership position. All I knew was that a woman’s role is just to do housework, be a companion for the man and raise children,” Long says.
With Long’s shift in attitude towards his wife would come an appreciation and newly found trust for his wife, and he would start recognizing the effort she put in for the well-being of their family.
“I had even to show her my mobile money PINs and food ratio cards, which I had previously kept hidden from her. As a result, many other good things started happening between us for the good of the family,” he added.
For John, the respect for his wife would also reflect on how he relates with other women and he has continued to encourage other them to take up leadership positions and make decisions.