A police officer formerly overseeing Dandenong is helping bring together young leaders in Melbourne’s South Sudanese community for peace.
Superintendent Charles Allen, on leave from Victoria Police, is now working internationally and domestically with the research-based Institute for Economics and Peace.
Recently, he facilitated a four-day workshop with emerging Australian South Sudanese leaders to inspire peaceful change here and abroad.
Achol Marial, chairperson of the South Sudanese Community Association, said violence between the Neur and Dinka communities in South Sudan was fueling tensions in Melbourne.
Threats had been made, lives had been lost, she said.
As a result, the Neurs in the city’s South East were largely disparate from the Dinkas in the West.
“Most of the local issues are based on the overseas issues,” Ms Marial said.
“Before the workshop, I didn’t know half the people there.
“We met with the same mindset and the same goal.”
The common cause was to create a diaspora to lobby the South Sudanese Government for peace in their homeland, she said
The leaders were inspired by examples of reconciliation in Timor Leste, South Africa and Rwanda.
It starts with features like good, non-corrupt government, a good education system and the free-flow of information, Ms Marial says.
“It’s about shifting the mindsets of how we view our lives here and South Sudan.
“We’ve identified that back in our homeland that Members of Parliament were the issue. But we’ve been advised not to focus on them.
“There are not going to be changes unless there’s a democratic volume of people asking for the same things.”
Working with influential young leaders is a “grass-roots” way of resolving conflict, based on research, Mr Allen says.
It’s a successful method, building on strengths not negatives, that forms “sustainable, peaceful communities”.
“We know peace is hard won and it is also fragile.”
