A Peacekeeper From the Mobile Team

It’s been a slow couple weeks in Juba. I was supposed to be out on mission earlier in the week, but due to circumstances outside of my control, I was never manifested on the flight and found myself grounded for another week in the capital.

I’m on the mobile protection team – a new approach to protection mainstreaming that is being led by Nonviolent Peaceforce. The idea is to integrate the protection of civilians into the overall humanitarian response in a sustained, meaningful way.

The problem is that the humanitarian sector is often preoccupied with logistics – how to get food from A to B, how many households need mosquito nets, how to target vulnerable populations who have fled to the bush. These civilians are subsisting on emergency food, sheltering under trees or in disused cattle camps.  

We’re here to make sure these logistics are incorporated in a way that humanizes the populations. Our main concern is to measure the capacities, vulnerabilities, and resiliencies of the host population in order to foster ownership and build long-lasting relationships with influential local actors.

We build the networks. We’re what Malcolm Gladwell calls “Connectors.” Ideally, those of us doing mobile protection are the “first in, last out.” 

When we hit the ground, we’re establishing relationships, not only with local leadership but with influential actors in the community – religious leaders, doctors, elders, teachers, business people, and women. When a distribution finishes, we stick around to make sure that the systems serve everyone effectively, especially the most vulnerable – women, children, the elderly, and the infirm.

So you can understand the frustration that for the last week, I’ve been grounded.

It’s been a bit of a blessing in disguise. We’ve done a lot of the groundwork that is necessary when building a team, such as meeting with others in the protection cluster to establish our mission and our responsibilities. We’ve also been able to outfit the team so that we can hit the ground running.

You’d be surprised how important this groundwork is, and how little opportunity you have to do it in an emergency situation.

It’s also allowed me to spend time researching the human rights situation in the country and gain an understanding of what we will be facing in different areas.

In the midst of complete chaos, a friend helped a friend, a neighbor stood up for a neighbor despite ethnic differences. He did it at great risk to himself. There’s danger in being a ‘collaborator,’ a serious risk to your short-term well-being to preserve your own humanity.

It is ultimately why I have faith that a solution can be found in this conflict. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but then I think of two of my colleagues: national staff, one Dinka, the other Nuer. Over the course of our training, they became fast friends. We never saw one without the other- two women who developed a bond that will long outlast the politics of the day.

It’s what gives me hope. It’s what allows me to read reports filled with horror, to suffer abuse from aggravated IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the camps, men and women who have experienced traumas far outside anything I could imagine.

It is what allows me to keep going.