Conflict between communities in central Mali started escalating in 2015. Today, violence is part of the daily lives of its inhabitants—including Djeme.

Djeme is a peace ambassador and the founder of an association of local mediators in Koro. With his peers, he works to solve local disputes and put an end to this spiral of violence.

He found his vocation at a Search for Common Ground training for local youth a few years back. “The training made me aware that peacebuilding is a process that involves everyone. It is up to us, the members of the community, to transmit the values, spirit, and behaviors necessary for peace and to build it together,” he said.

Recently, he and the other mediators made a breakthrough. “We went to the villages where violence first broke out. With the support of community leaders, we were able to start negotiations between the local armed groups.”

At the end of the negotiations, the two groups in conflict expressed their willingness to take steps towards reconciliation. “First of all, we were able to release a woman and her daughter held by one of the two armed groups. Shortly afterward, the other group freed a young boy who had been held hostage for more than a year“.

This is only the beginning. Three more meetings are already planned, and Djeme is more optimistic than ever about their outcome. “It is largely due to what we learned in Search’s training that we were able to achieve such a result. We used active listening, respect for human dignity, and what we learned about conflict analysis. We sought to understand the root causes of conflict before beginning the mediation. This first exchange has been so successful that each subsequent encounter is involving more and more members of the community,” Djeme said.