In early 2023, organized by the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) with USAID, we ran a five-day training in community dialogue facilitation, mediation and negotiation for EWLA’s volunteer committee members: the people who provide legal aid in Amhara, Oromia, Gambela, Benishangul-Gumuz, the southern regions and Dire Dawa City Administration.
Legal-aid volunteers are often among the first people a dispute reaches. When a dispute is mediated well, it can be settled while it is still small.
The elder’s words
One moment from that week has stayed with us. An elder, a mediator himself, spoke about how reconciliation is done in our culture. We share his words in our own translation from the Amharic:
In our culture, an ox is slaughtered to reconcile people. But now, if you would be reconciled, I would be glad even if it were me.
He was not speaking literally. He was describing what reconciliation costs the person who brings it about, and how much it is worth. Every technique we taught that week (listening, reframing, finding the interest behind the position) serves that willingness.
A longer partnership
That training was part of a longer road with EWLA.
- In August 2022, with USAID and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), EWLA held a two-day capacity-building training in Hawassa for civil society and women’s groups and for elected women parliamentarians.
- In September 2022, invited by EWLA in partnership with NDI, we trained its head-office members, regional coordinators and volunteers over two days in Sululta.
- The same month we joined a roundtable with EWLA members, volunteers, justice bodies and partners on women’s engagement in political and governance processes, including national and regional dialogues.
Why it matters
Mediation is often described as a soft skill. In a country working through conflict it is one of the hardest and most necessary. The volunteers who carry it into their communities, many of them women working in the law, are doing peace-building one dispute at a time.
