Initiatives of Change - Creators of Peace

In February/March 2007, Peace Circles involved 31 participants in Johannesburg. They were conducted in partnership with Khanya Africa Development Services, run by Philia Panstwa, a South African delegate to the Creators of Peace conference in Uganda in 2005. KADS aims to find suitable training for over 200 non-profit organizations.

The outcomes from Peace Circle participants have included the following stories:

Peace Circle Participants after receiving their certificates in Johannesburg, March 2007

Dolly invited relatives to her home for a meal. Some of them did not get on with each other. They discussed challenges they had in life and Dolly asked, “Why can’t we forgive each other?” She briefed them on peace making, gave each of them a piece of paper and asked them to spend some time in introspection. This led them to sharing issues about each other and the community and how they could be a more caring family in the future.

One woman sharing deeply, wept about all she felt about the time that she was gang raped. She felt she had found a home within the Peace Circle group, which gave her the courage to share. At the end of the Circle, she said she had found a liberation that she had been looking for.

Thandi has two daughters. One is very conscientious and the other quite lazy. This led her to favouring the one over the other. Since attending the Peace Circle workshop, Thandi realized what she had done and apologised to her daughter.

After one session about really listening to others, Joyce decided to gather all the family together around the table where she served a special meal for them. It was the first time in a long while that they had done that as a family.
She knew her nephew had problems and wanted to talk to her about them, but she never made enough time to really listen to him. So this time she sat down with him and really listened and cared about what was on his heart.

Jabu had looked to her aunt for support ever since her parents passed away. Her cousin had been extremely nasty to Jabu because of her attachment to the cousin’s mother. When her aunt’s birthday came, Jabu felt too discouraged to go because of the antagonism of her cousin. The morning of the birthday, she woke up and decided she would go to the celebration. She bought a present for her aunt and one for her cousin. The cousin was so overwhelmed by this gesture of Jabu’s that she made a sincere apology to Jabu and said how sorry she was for the way she had treated her. Since then they have kept regular touch with each other and become more like sisters.

Christine runs a crèche from her home. A neighbour became nasty and told the parents of the children that the food was awful and the house not clean. It hurt Christine’s business. One day the neighbour ran out of mealie meal and asked Christine for help. Christine helped gladly and the neighbour apologised to Christine for spreading the rumours.

Christine also sold curtains for a friend. This friend drank a lot and one day accused Christine of stealing her money. Christine was very hurt and stopped working with her. While attending the Peace Circle workshop Christine decided to go and see the woman who was overwhelmed that Christine would visit. She admitted that she had been wanting to apologise to Christine for a long time but did not know how.

Josephin and her sister had stopped talking to each other for quite a while even though they lived in the same house.The relationship became deadlocked when the sister did not want Josephin’s adopted child to also be in the house.
Since Josephin participated in the Peace Circle workshop, she decided to take the first step and apologised to her sister. They talked and came to an understanding and now happily stay together.