RECONCILE International was established in August, 2003, as an affiliate church organization by the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) in an endeavor to mitigate conflicts between communities and tribes in New Sudan due to civil war, tribal wars, and numerous human rights violations.
The civil war for the past 21 years has had a dramatic affect upon the peoples of South Sudan resulting in an environment where it is difficult for communities to build trust, heal memories of trauma, transform conflict and promote reconciliation.
RECONCILE was established with the specific role of promotion and training in conflict transformation that includes issues of psychosocial rehabilitation, trauma awareness and reconciliation, promotion and training on issues of democratization and good governance, and promotion of interfaith dialogue with the purpose of widening human fulfillment and building foundations of responsible wellbeing whereby people are able to experience a good quality of life.
RECONCILE OBJECTIVES
1. Enhanced understanding of the Sudanese society on issues of good governance, and respect for human rights.
2. Strengthened conflict transformation capacity within the religious and community leadership in the southern Sudan and other marginalized areas.
3. Popularization of the peace agreement.
4. Enhanced capacity of community and church leadership on reconciliation and healing of war memories.
5. Researched and documented cultural values that promoted tolerance, reconciliation and coexistence among people of different cultural backgrounds.
RECONCILE’S PROGRAMME AREAS
• Civic Education Training - Peace building and social transformation; Conscientization on issues of good governance, democracy, and human rights. Awareness of the CPA and the Constitution and their dissemination to the people, and training in advocacy. Voter education in preparation for elections and referendum. Orientation for parliamentarians to introduce them to parliamentary procedures and policy formation.
• Psychosocial Rehabilitation – Dealing with reconciliation and healing of memories and wounds of war through trauma awareness and healing programs, and reconciliation seminars and workshops. Training Sudanese as peer counselors to serve traumatized community members.
• Intercultural/ Cross culture and Interfaith understanding with the aim of creating conditions for coexistence through: religious tolerance promotion visits, collection and dissemination of ethnological material, and training church leaders in understanding Islam.
• Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) of excombatants. RECONCILE will be focusing on the reintegration portion though vocational training programs and trauma healing being developed in Yei and Leer. The programmes will provide soldiers with the necessary skills to re-enter society rather than be drawn into affiliating with the local militias.
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