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Building Peace in Angola   
Aug. 25, 2008—Almost 30 years of civil war in Angola has led to a humanitarian tragedy of monumental proportions. UN data indicate that over four million people have been displaced and more than 50 percent of those are children. One of those was Cesaltina Nunda. Born in a forest and moving from place to place with her family, Cesaltina largely grew up in Jamba—an encampment of Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA force in the southeastern part of the country. The war eventually took her father and brother-in-law, but Cesaltina survived. She went to live and study in South Africa for six years and, thus, had a chance for a fresh start. Cesaltina acknowledged that she started working at a young age and didn’t have much of a childhood, but “having difficulties in life teaches you how to make good choices,” she said. An opportunity to work at the Angolan Embassy in South Africa led her to become familiar with a non-governmental organization called Angola 2000, which was started by Angolan refugee youth in South Africa. When she returned to a more stable Angola in 2004 to help her ill mother, Cesaltina started working in the capital city of Luanda as a volunteer for Angola 2000. For Cesaltina, the organization’s mission to strengthen individual and institutional capacity in conflict resolution and peace building skills was a natural fit and she eventually became a paid staff member. “When the organization started,” said Cesaltina, “the main focus was working with the reintegration and disarmament process because the country was coming from a war and we needed to help the government reintegrate people and refugees.” She says that this was not an easy process in the beginning, because the government didn’t consider disarmament be a non-governmental organization’s job. Eventually, Angola 2000 was able to form partnerships with government agencies, with the police, and with members of parliament.
The organization went to communities to train them about peace. Cesaltina spoke about the “Alternative to Violence Project,” a program based on a process started in U.S. prisons to teach conflict resolution skills to inmates. Over time, the organization has shifted some of its work toward human rights and good governance, including sponsoring roundtables and training campaigns for police and government staff. In her work, Cesaltina has gleaned some interesting observations about women and war. “When we started working with communities,” she said, “men were coming to the table, but, when you go deep into the story, you find that, during the war, women were there. Women were using guns to defend themselves and they knew where men were keeping the arms. Women were playing a big role in the process.” Cesaltina also admitted that women needed to be encouraged to participate in discussions and that men often had problems with women being at the table—claiming, for example, that women knew nothing about disarmament. Angola 2000 tried to make the case that, on the contrary, women were very involved with transporting armaments, that everyone had guns, and it was affecting whole families.
Cesaltina joined CEDPA in the summer of 2008 for a one-month Global Women in Management program, under a scholarship from the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Educating Women and Girls Initiative. She said she will take new insights from the program back to Angola. Claiming to be a shy person by nature, Cesaltina said that she has learned to overcome her fears and become more confident, and that she was especially proud to give a presentation before the U.S. Congress during her participation in the program. She has also learned to believe in herself. “If you are open to possibilities, you will always find the potential in yourself,” she added. |
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