Elizabteth Azima is a 16-year-old student at Chukudum secondary school. She explained that during the corona locked down, she has seen most of her school mates getting pregnant. ‘I feel bad for them. They will not be with me in class when school reopens’’. Asked about how she had managed to keep herself from pregnancy, she said I focused because of the messages I heard from Root of Generations ‘School first and marriage later’’. These messages were circulated during career guidance sessions in schools.

‘To me, going for traditional dances was a red zone since 2019. My memories about the friends I lost, and my baby whom I pulled out from my wounded friend have remained so fresh in me. But I am very thankful that ROG brought the trauma awareness trainings. I have attended 4 traditional dances since August because this program taught me that trauma is a normal thing that can occur to individuals but we must rise above it’ Susan Nadai, who once shared stories about not attending traditional dances during a fatal shooting of her friends at a traditional dance in 2019.

‘I was lucky to be in the list of women and men selected by community to be supported by ROG. It wasn’t not something possible but God made it real. We were trained in different groups and category and I was in the group of second-hand clothes.’’ After the training, we were given the startup capital and support to purchase the first items to being with. It was hard at the beginining but I found way to settle in a good location where I received high business turnover. This was a breakthrough for me. We have been able to meet family basic needs, and we can at least have two meals a day’

Road users no longer require arm escorts to move between Chukudum and Camp -15 after ROG facilitated peace dialogue between Buya and Didinga communities in Nov-2021. (ROG has always been appreciated for responding to prevent potential violent conflicts). Lucky enough safer-world and WFWI had just provided ROG with flexible grants which it was able to respond to such conflict. That change was significant because safety of people and goods was threatened when there was conflict between the two communities. Since then, the Didinga and Buya in that corridor have been living peacefully.

She said “in my water point people are now paying water users fee which can help in H/P repair in case it breaks down.” Apart from that, she says that even people agreed to clean the water points during the O&M training that was conducted.
Before this it was hard to make people clean and participate on any activity of cleaning the water point. She says “Now people of Najie have started owning their water points, which is very important.”
She however insisted that ROG in partnership with VNG should continue with the trainings.