Recently, I was in South Sudan to continue the work with our partners in expanding the Youth Peacemaker Network in the country. The initiative is driven by the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI) and has Ericsson, Zain and UNESCO as partners.

This mission was split in two parts. The first mission was about performing training for the Peacemakers on business-skills, entrepreneurship, as well as ICT and mediation in Torit (the capital of Equatoria State). The ICT part of the training was delivered by my colleague Candice Taylor. We have delivered basic ICT training to this same group since 2014. They are now growing in their ICT skills and taking on trainer roles in their own counties.

The second mission was about launching three more Community Learning Centers in three different counties: Kapoeta South, Kapoeta North and Kapoeta East. Previously we established two Community Learning Centers, one in Torit and one in Nimule. I was part of this mission along with my colleague Tom Nygren, in which we delivered computers to the three new Community Learning Centers. These computers run on an open source operating system and on the Ericsson cloud and are used in the education initiative Connect To Learn. A large number of future young peacemakers, both men and women, came to the launch. And just like the first two computer centers, the new ones were already very popular among youth eager to get connected to the internet.

Now that I am back home, reflecting on what we accomplished, I am especially honored to have taken part of this mission, because Ericsson and its partners managed to do something positive in the midst of a challenging situation. After all, South Sudan has been witnessing escalating violence since December 2013 due to a civil war. This proves that technology for good rises above unrest.