African Great Lakes Initiative
Since its launch in 2005, the Center has identified the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa as a key geographical area of global outreach. Over four years, the Center formed a close partnership with the Mennonite Central Committee, African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM), and World Vision International, hosting yearly gatherings in the region and forming a fresh movement for peacemaking. Today, the African Great Lakes Initiative has impacted thousands around East Africa, drawing seasoned and emerging leaders into a vibrant ministry of cultivating, resourcing, and connecting Christian peacemakers.
Voices from the 2012 Leadership Institute
Bishop Bismark Avokaya
Bishop Bismark Avokaya is the bishop of Mundri Diocese in the Episcopal Church of Sudan. His diocese is located in South Sudan and borders Uganda.
Jacinta Atemba Makokha
Ms. Jacinta Atemba Makokha is the chairperson of change agents for Peace International, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She leads trainings in peacebuilding, strategic planning, trauma healing, and alternatives to violence throughout East Africa.
The African Great Lakes Initiative would not be possible without abiding and mutually transformative support from partner organizations in Africa. These three ministries have committed time, institutional energy, and resources to this initiative over many years of shared partnership.
In November 2006, the Center for Reconciliation organized a gathering of 45 key Christian leaders in Kampala, Uganda to learn more about needs of East African leaders in the field of reconciliation and to dream together about possible ways in which the search for peace, healing and reconciliation in the region could be strengthened and deepened in partnership with the Center.
The gathering has since become an annual event. The most recent gathering was in Burundi in January 2010, with participation from 110 African leaders from Christian-based organizations and institutions involved in ministries of reconciliation from Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, and Tanzania.