Makerere University Rotary Peace Center

19/08/2026

Economic exclusion is one of the most reliable pathways to conflict. When young people have no productive outlet, no land, no skills, and no stake in the stability of their community, the conditions for tension multiply.

Hendoka Essome Joel, a Cohort 9 Rotary Peace Fellow from the Makerere University Rotary Peace Center, addressed that reality directly through his Social Change Initiative, Sustainable Agricultural Empowerment of Cameroonian Youths to Foster Positive Peace, which is built on a straightforward premise: a young person with practical skills, a productive livelihood, and economic agency has both the means and the motivation to invest in peace.

Watch:

Joel, a Peace Fellow from the Makerere University Rotary Peace Cent...

14/08/2026

Peace is built in classrooms, playgrounds, and community centres where young people learn to coexist despite their differences.

Makerere University Cohort 6 Rotary Peace Fellow Julius Meleng Ntang is proving that every day in Cameroon.

As Senior Programs Manager at Itaka Escolapios Foundation in Central Africa, Julius is leading two flagship initiatives that are turning schools into centres of dialogue, inclusion, and reconciliation.

The first, Building Peace Together: From the Chalkboard to the Community, is active across five regions of Cameroon, reaching 25 primary and secondary schools and 5,000 direct beneficiaries. Students become peace ambassadors. Teachers become dialogue facilitators. Parents become partners. The peace learned at school becomes the peace lived in the community.

The second, Arts for Peace, reaches 2,800 beneficiaries across four schools in three regions. Through drawing, painting, music, drama, dance, and poetry, young people are given a safe space to reflect on conflict, celebrate diversity, and imagine a different future before they are able to build it.

Together, these two initiatives have reached 29 schools and 7,800 direct beneficiaries across Cameroon.

Read More: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-dag-hammarskj%C3%B6ld-lecture-hall-makerere-cameroon-julius-meleng-sqw2f/

12/08/2026

Young people around the world grow up in different realities. Different economies. Different systems. Different struggles.

But the aspirations stay the same. Dignity. Education. A voice in decisions that shape their future.

This International Youth Day, we celebrate the Peace Fellows at Makerere University Rotary Peace Center who carry that aspiration into practice. From community dialogue to conflict resolution, they prove peacebuilding is not a distant idea. It is a daily commitment made by young leaders across contexts.

Common ground starts with listening across difference.

Happy International Youth Day to every young peacebuilder doing the work, wherever you are.

05/08/2026

Youth governance is a present responsibility.

On August 1, 2026, Cohort 9 Rotary Peace Fellow Ekah Robert stepped into that responsibility as Moderator of the panel discussion on The Role of Youth in Local Governance and Community Development, during the Official Opening Ceremony of the Map4Change Fellowship in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Organised by AYSA Africa and hosted at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Cameroon auditorium in Bastos, the event brought together practitioners, institutional leaders, and young people committed to strengthening youth participation in governance and community development. Panelists including Mado Njeh, Eric Kombey, Rigobert Kenmogne and Joseph André Badjang Ngue shared practical insights drawn from their own work in this space.

The event drew support from a wide range of partners including the Cameroonian Ministry of Youth and Civic Education, World Bank Africa, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Cameroon and Cameroon Youth Awards, reflecting the seriousness with which youth leadership in governance is being taken across the continent.

Congratulations, Ekah.

03/08/2026

Music has always carried messages that politics cannot. In the Gambia, electoral seasons bring tension. Suwaibou Jammeh, a Cohort 9 Makerere University Rotary Peace Fellow, decided to meet that tension with melody.

His Social Change Initiative, Melodies for Peace in the Gambia: Harnessing Music to Promote Peaceful Elections in Yundum, used artistic expression as a tool for de-escalating electoral tensions and building community unity in a context where the stakes of division are high.

This is not a soft approach, seeing as music reaches people that formal dialogue does not. It crosses political lines, speaks to emotion before ideology, and creates shared space where communities can breathe before they react. Jammeh understood that and built a peace initiative around it.

Jammeh has a refined methodology: community-centred, creatively driven, and grounded in the strategic communication frameworks the program develops in every fellow.

The Gambia gains a practitioner who knows how to use culture as a peacebuilding tool. That is exactly what this fellowship is designed to produce.

We are proud of Jammeh and grateful for the work he has already begun.

Watch Here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcZrzdtKonw

31/07/2026

We end the month of July by spotlighting the work of Magenta Girls Initiative.

The Magenta Girls Initiative launched community dialogues in Bombo Sub-county, Hoima, creating a safe space for open conversations on the drivers of gender-based violence.

Breaking the silence is the first step toward safer homes and stronger communities.

1️⃣ Community members identified key factors fuelling GBV in their area:

2️⃣ Neglect of family responsibilities

3️⃣ Financial conflicts between couples

4️⃣ Lack of accountability over household income

5️⃣ Poor communication within relationships

One concern came up repeatedly. Men sell agricultural produce but fail to account for how the income gets used. This gap breaks trust and fuels conflict at home.

Economic transparency and joint decision-making build stronger families. When couples make financial decisions together, they reduce conflict and build the trust that safer homes need.

Preventing GBV starts with addressing harmful behaviours and promoting shared responsibility for the family's well-being.

Magenta Girls Initiative (MGI) is a women-led non-profit organization formed by two Makerere University Cohort 2 Rotary Peace Fellows, Jennifer Montgomery and Gorett Komurembe.

Read more about MGI's work: https://magentagirlsinitiative.org/our-work/

29/07/2026

Every cohort at the Makerere University Rotary Peace Center brings practitioners whose depth of experience makes the learning richer for everyone in the room. Cohort 11 is no different.

Omamma Jennifer Michael, a Cohort 11 Rotary Peace Fellow from Nigeria, came to Makerere with a clear sense of purpose. For her, the fellowship is not a pause from her work in peace and development. It is an acceleration of it. She is here to connect academic frameworks with the on-the-ground realities she already knows, and to build the cross-cultural network that will extend the reach of her advocacy far beyond what she could do alone.

27/07/2026

Last week, representing the Zimbabwe Youth Biodiversity Network as a Steering Committee Member for Research and Policy, Tapiwa Chimbadzwa Prosper, a Cohort 10 Rotary Peace Fellow at the Makerere University Rotary Peace Center, attended the Annual Convention on the Future for Community Based Natural Resources Management in Zimbabwe, hosted by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation in partnership with WWF Zimbabwe, Maliasili, the Forestry Commission Zimbabwe, and the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Climate.

At the heart of their work is a truth that too many conservation frameworks ignore: communities living alongside wildlife bear the heaviest burdens of coexistence, yet they are consistently sidelined in the policies designed to manage it.

At the convention, our fellow contributed directly to developing the guiding framework for Zimbabwe's CBNRM strategy, specifically pushing to embed youth perspectives from the foundation of that framework. Not as a symbolic gesture. As a structural necessity for long-term sustainability.

23/07/2026

Meet Melvina Yeama Thomas from Sierra Leone, a Cohort 9 Makerere Rotary Peace Fellow.

Her fellowship, supported by Rotary International, gave her the tools to confront a hard reality head-on.

Through her Social Change Initiative, Strategies for Combating Gender-Based Violence, Discrimination and Gender Inequality in Sierra Leone, she built concrete solutions to dismantle systemic injustice.

The program sharpened her perspective, her strategic leadership, and her approach to human rights advocacy.

Melvina is ready to champion gender equity and build lasting safety for women and girls in her community.

One fellow. One initiative. One community moved closer to justice.

21/07/2026

Digital rights should be a peacebuilding priority.

Peacebuilding has traditionally focused on preventing violent conflict, strengthening dialogue, promoting reconciliation, and rebuilding institutions. However, the digital age has fundamentally transformed the environments in which conflicts emerge and societies interact.

Read; https://bit.ly/4yzlF6F

Makerere University Cohort 6 Rotary Peace Fellow, Ntang Julius Meleng, offers an evidence-based reflection on how digital rights, youth participation, and peacebuilding intersect to shape more inclusive and democratic societies.