'Quaker peacebuilding in Africa' - 2016 Swarthmore Lecture with Cécile Nyiramana and Esther Mombo

The lecture provides Quakers and others involved in peace work the chance to hear about how this inspirational work has led to the transformation of suffering into a force for social change.
The lecture provides an opportunity to consider peace building as local community work; we have peace work to do on our own streets, and Friends from other Yearly Meetings with experience of this can help us in our work. Worldwide issues of peace, reconciliation, justice and injustice will be illuminated by their healing work.
Cécile Nyiramana is the current Clerk of Rwanda Yearly Meeting, having served and worked for the Yearly Meeting in a variety of roles. She founded nine groups of Women in Dialogue, a peace program bringing together widows, genocide survivors and perpetrators wives. Cecile currently works for African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM-Rwanda) as Head of Justice, Peace and Reconciliation. Cecile is a leading peacemaker with established record of promoting human rights and peace and justice.
Esther Mombo is a member of Bware Yearly Meeting, Kenya. And Professor of African Church history, Gender and theology at St. Paul’s University in Limuru Kenya. Esther’s PhD (from Edinburgh University) focused on the Development of Quakerism in Kenya with special reference to the role of women and she has received an honorary doctorate from Virginia theological seminary for her work in highlighting issues of gender disparities and gender justice in church and society. Her research and teaching interests span the fields of Church history, with a focus on Mission history, interfaith relations, and theology and Gender studies with a focus on African women’s theology, HIV and AIDS. Esther serves in several ecumenical committees including the Commission of Education and Ecumenical formation of the World Council of Churches and works with religious groups on issues of Gender and women’s full participation in church and society.

[@JohnWilmerding]

When she introduced herself to me in Des Moines IA in 2005 as a "Quaker peacemaker", this Rwandese woman, Cecile Nyiramana, changed my life, making it possible for me to call myself a Quaker peacemaker as well. She survived the Rwandan genocide as a young wife, her husband a member of the opposite faction as her, and she pregnant, by hiding under a bed.
"I grew up in the Catholic Church, and my father attended the Adventist Church. But in December 1998, together with my husband, I became a member of the Friends Church. The Friends started to help me. They invited me to their seminars about conflict management and AVP in 2001. Just after attending an AVP workshop, I felt many changes in my heart and my mind also, and overcame my pain and grief. Since then, I decided to go to other and to recognize the good things which are in others. And since, I know how violence is not a good thing, and so I try to help other women with husbands in prison, to see together how to break that dividing wall in Rwanda. I decided to bring these women together with women who are genocide survivors. It was not easy to do that, but as a Quaker, I had to do something for peace and to call others to live in peace after asking for or giving forgiveness."
When I invited her, she consented to being designated one of the Principal Scholars in our virtual peacemaking consortium, John Woolman College of Active Peace.
facebook.com/groups/JohnWoolmanCollege/