Arise and Shine

2020

The importance of investing in cultural adaptation

The adaptation workshop took place in February 2020. The participants from South Sudan came to Nairobi for two weeks. They attended a 5-day Wellbeing and Resilience (WebR) encounter and attended a 5-day Adaptation Workshop. The participants included 10 leaders (5 men and 5 women) from Abyei, plus an additional five artists (3 men and 2 women) from South Sudan were included in the adaptation workshop. Only one artist was originally from Abyei.

The adaptation workshop consists of a number of smaller activities (discussions, brainstorming, prioritizing, and consensus-building around the concepts around a contextually adapted cycle of violence. Then the adaptation team writes what the concepts mean (i.e. the definition) and secondly gives an example through a real-life story explaining the concept. By the end of the adaptation workshop, the team will have developed and documented the following:

A program name & logo
Contextualized definitions and stories for the Cycle of Violence and Breaking Free
Selected and written traditional folktales that explain the breaking free concepts of truth, healing, forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.

Context

After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan and leaders of what would become South Sudan, Abyei has remained a flashpoint and has continued to suffer from violence, displacing the Ngok Dinka communities on two occasions and threatening to stop the seasonal migration of the Misseriya nomads. Both the Ngok Dinka and the Misseriya continue to suffer from severe instability in the region and remain polarized.

Issues of distrust and social fragmentation are not only inter-tribal but are also intra-tribal as the communities live in the midst ofuncertainty and question if their best interests are being served by their leaders. Unfortunantely, the systems for conflict resolution, during the times of chiefs Deng Majok of the Ngok Dinka and Babu Nemir of the Misseriya, when the chiefs led their communities during a period of relative peace and cooperation, from the last 1940s until the early 1970s, no longer exists.

Culture

Abyei is the traditional homeland of the Ngok Dinka, a tribal group with strong ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties to the Dinka of South Sudan. There are nine clans within the Ngok Dinka and on the logo below the nine stars represent each of the nine clans. The adaptation team also told of a very mango famous tree in Abyei, called Chuen - Ayak. This Oak is where the majority of court cases resolved and is a sign of peace in Abyei. Everyone is aware of this. Thus when the adaptation team thought about would would be something that represents healing everyone agreed that the Chuen - Ayak was the key symbol.

Name and logo creation

Language is a critical factor when adapting materials to a specific context and culture. The language used influences the level of reception and understanding of the curriculum content.

Using local languages to name the program and describe certain items enhances the participants’ reception of what is being presented to them.

When the participants decided on a name for Arise and Shine they had an internal conversation and decided on the name in Dinka first. They then translated the name to English and Arabic.

English

Dinka

Arabic

Highlights

Here are some sample pieces of the Arise and Shine curriculmn that was created for the Arise and Shine program

Arise and Shine Book (English)

Click to download

Arise and Shine Picture Book (Dinka)

Click to download

The Vagus Nerve

Click to download

The polyvagal ladder connected to the Vagus Nerve

Click to download

Adapting the cycle of violence

Participants review the different elements of the cycle of violence. In both the "hurting-self" and the "hurting-others" this is where one can see many everyday mental health issues being explored and explained from their own context. In many ways, this becomes a list of how people can tell when their friends, family, and neighbors are distressed and unwell. Participants explore through individual brainstorming all the different issues that they feel are a part of the painful cycle. Afterwards participants sort and group the ways people hurt themselves and others. Finally, they are ranked and prioritized. Lived experience is given space, as well as, what people observe in others in their daily lives.

The same is done for the "breaking free" element but categorized by truth-telling, forgiveness, justice, peace, and reconciliation.

How we use language

We heal in our mother tongue. So most often the community peer support groups are given in the mother tongue. Thus having a resource in the mother tongue for Community Facilitators is often very helpful

However, our experience has been that while most people will speak in the mother tongue they do not read and write in it.

Thus we have begun to develop the Community Facilitator (CF) Flipchart in the mother tongue on the front page which is used to talk and share with the community. In this case, it is in Dinka. This gives the CF the key terms in his mother tongue.

And then the back page of notes, which is for the Community Facilitator to read and share in her own words. This page is then put into the language that the CF has studied. In this case in Arabic.

Celebrating the artists

Watercolors

We use illustrators and painters who paint using watercolors. They paint from their interpretation of the stories and definitions from the adaptation workshop. GSN has learned that graphic/computer-generated artwork does not have the same emotions as watercolor paintings. Involving the artists in the adaptation workshop is key.

Women artists

Involving women artists is really critical and in sub-Saharan Africa, it is not as easy to find them. They bring their own perspective that is unique to their own life experience as women in the culture. Having this point of view is critical.

In many sub-Saharan African countries, women artists are rare. In South Sudan, the lead artist was challenged in 2015 that there were no women artists. He spent five years training some so that in 2020 they were available.

Most images that people see and internalize today in South Sudan come from the newspapers and social media. There are very few positive images. Almost everything that people see about themselves and their context is about violence, destruction, and pain. Thus showing that there is already many positive and healthy practices that happen everyday in society is an important part of a strenth-based, healing-centered approach. It also shows that there are many things people do everyday to support their emotional and mental health.

The Artists

James Aguer

Santina Moya

Deng Chol

Sarah Juma

Oniba David

Some of the visual images are extremely violent and envoke many emotions due to the subject areas. The adaptation process participants note such images are a part of the truth-telling process of the violent and complex societies they live in. They felt including uncomfortable images is important as it documents the harsh realities of people's lived experiences. They note that such images are not re-traumaizing but instead are an important part of their healing process. They insist on difficult images in order for people to tell the stories in their hearts.