In 2008, the two had worked together for several months to resolve an armed conflict between rival clans in Mandera, a region in extreme northeastern Kenya along the Somali and Ethiopian borders. After Sorobit, a major in the Kenyan Army, was redeployed elsewhere that fall, Hassan remained in Mandera to work with the women’s group she founded there. They hadn’t seen each other since.

And then, there they were, reconnecting with shock and surprise halfway around the world at the 2012 .

“It was really a blessing to meet him here. I couldn’t believe it,” said Hassan, who has worked as an advocate for women’s empowerment, peace and development in her hometown of Mandera for more than a decade.

“I had no idea she’d be here,” added Sorobit.

Disputes over access to water and pasture are a recurrent source of armed conflict in the arid region surrounding Mandera. With each new outburst of violence, Hassan became increasingly disturbed at the roles women played in the conflict by encouraging their sons and husbands to fight. At the same time, it became clear to her that the burdens of the repeated violence – sorrow, poverty, hunger and instability – were largely borne by women and their children.

In 2000, she founded a group called Women for Peace and Development to address these issues in the region and to advocate for women’s involvement in community decision-making. Hassan’s group is now known as the Horn of Africa Women’s Empowerment Kenya Agency (its acronym means “women” in Somali, the main language spoken in Mandera).

Sorobit arrived in Mandera in early 2008, assigned command of an army unit charged with providing security for civil authorities in the region. He first met Hassan when she asked to speak on behalf of women in the community before the district’s security committee. Afterwards, the two collaborated on several related initiatives to resolve the area’s continuing conflicts. Through her organization, Hassan helped ease tension that existed between the community and Sorobit’s soldiers, resulting in greater trust and more effective collaboration between them. Sorobit also said Hassan played a key role in a disarmament project, one of their successes in Mandera during the brief time they worked together.

“[Our work] was a milestone in creating peace and stability in that region,” Sorobit said.

Sorobit joined the Kenyan military in 1992 and has been deployed throughout Kenya and on peacekeeping assignments in several other African countries. He said his experience in Mandera made clear to him the importance of cooperation with traditional systems, local leaders and civil authorities while on duty in a new region.

Though not attending SPI on official duty with the Kenyan military, Sorobit’s commanding officers are supportive. He plans to apply concepts from SPI – building on his earlier experience in Mandera – to his future assignments, he said.

Hassan hopes the program will provide her with a new academic perspective on to augment her 12 years of practical work in the field. She is one of 12 women who came to SPI as part of the first cohort in the ’s new .

The first group of students in the included 12 women from Africa  (Liberia, Kenya, and regions in and around Somalia) and the South Pacific (Fiji and Solomon Islands) at the 2012 under .

After returning home, the participants will be provided with mentors and will take two additional classes in their respective home regions before earning a graduate certificate. An additional eight Somali women who did not receive visas to attend SPI this year are also enrolled in the program’s first cohort.

“I’m grateful, I’m overwhelmed to be a part of this,” said Gwendolyn Myers, a 21-year-old activist and journalist from Liberia who was selected for the program. “I want to bring this key message to the group: prioritize young people! Young people can contribute positively towards peace and development, if given the chance.”

She said her SPI classes taught her how to analyze and “map” conflicts and to bring all parties involved “to the table,” enabling her to act more strategically in Liberia in the future.

Myers is executive director of , a nonprofit organization that works with university students and youth to promote peace, reconciliation and a spirit of volunteerism in Liberia.

Hiba Mohamed Ismail, an instructor with the in Hargeisa, Somaliland, echoed Myers’ thoughts: “I was so lucky to be chosen.” She spoke of the benefits of being granted a safe, hospitable place to gain wider knowledge while reflecting on the social situation at home.

Ismail trains at-risk youth – many of them homeless, battling drug addictions or recently released from prison – in conflict management and vocational and social skills.

As a follow-up to SPI, experienced leaders in the peace field will act as mentors for each sub-group of women, helping them to integrate their academic training with their day-to-day work.

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding received more than 100 applications for spots in the first cohort of the women’s leadership program and has already begun planning for future sessions. Working with its funding partners, and the German development organization, EED/, the peacebuilding center is expecting a larger group from the South Pacific next year, and it hopes to bring more Liberian and Somali women as well. Plans are also underway to add a new cohort of women leaders from Burma.

“The leadership of both women and men is vital to developing, implementing and sustaining robust peacebuilding processes at all levels of society,” said , director of the Women’s Peacebuilding Leadership Program. “More and more organizations and countries are realizing that the participation of women in leadership is vital to their well-being. This program is assisting countries and regions in developing the capacity of women to take up these leadership roles that are so needed.”

Three of the women in the program – Asli Ahmed Mohamoud, Amina Hassan, and Priscilla Singh – spoke appreciatively of having the support of their husbands for their peacebuilding work. In their home regions, it is almost unknown for a husband to care for the children in the family to enable a wife to play a public role, but their husbands have been exceptional. Mohamoud has three children, Hassan has five, and Singh has two.

Mohamoud, employed by , is the founder of a radio program called “Voice of Women,” which draws on the oral tradition of the Somali community to mobilize women to participate in their country’s peacebuilding process. She also writes a weekly newspaper column to encourage women.

Trained as a schoolteacher, Hassan founded Women for Peace and Development in Mandera, the northeast district of Kenya, in 1998. “Twenty or 25 years ago, you would hardly see a woman participate in activities beyond the family,” she said. “Some changes have been realized.” She said frequently recurring droughts – probably due to climate change – have forced some of the changes. Her people are seeing the end of the tradition of men supporting their families by owning herds of camels and other animals.

“Men are becoming idle and not knowing what to do or where to start over,” she said. Hassan’s group has doled out small loans – “we started with 100 women receiving 5,000 Kenyan shillings (about 60 U.S. dollars)” to empower women to start supporting their families through setting up market stalls and other small businesses.

For her efforts at reducing violent conflict and seeking other ways for her people to survive, Hassan has received the Head of State commendation in Kenya. She is planning to run for a seat in the nation’s parliament.

As the first woman to be elected to local government in her region of Fiji, Singh faced bullying and came to realize that women need to form a “critical mass” in government in order not to feel alone in the “lion’s den.” Singh is working to increase the role of women in the next national election and plans to run for a national office herself at some time in the future.

All of the participants in the Women’s Peace Leadership Program made the point that women and men must be respectful partners if there is to be lasting social change, for the betterment of all. “Promoting leadership for women is also promoting collaborative leadership for men,” said Jenner.

Though they were together at SPI for just a month, these first participants developed strong bonds and friendships, said 26-year-old Philma Zaku, a youth coordinator for the surrounding Honiara, Solomon Islands.

“You’re able to communicate with people who have the same passion … for making the world a better place,” said Zaku, whose job includes a significant focus on reducing and preventing domestic violence against women.

Zaku made a point of linking peace to other issues affecting the Pacific Islands, notably climate change and rising sea levels, which threatened the islands’ very existence.

, the executive director of 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, said he hopes the women’s leadership program marks the beginning of the participants working together over their entire lifetimes, sometimes in collaboration with 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Zaku agreed: “This first cohort of the women’s leadership program is just the beginning of something that must continue for the betterment of the world.”

Other members of the first Women’s Peacebuilding Leadership Program at SPI were: Amal Yasin Ibrahim, who works with the in Somaliland; Windor Dorko, executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy in Liberia; Vaiba Flomo, featured in the documentary “” as one of the founding members of the Women’s Mass Action Campaign in 2003, which was instrumental in ending war in Liberia; Grace Jarsor, who was also one of the founding members of the Women’s Mass Action Campaign in Liberia, works for her government’s Ministry of Gender and Development; Jerolie Belabulie, a monitoring and evaluation officer employed by the in the Solomon Islands; and Alita Waqabaca, clinical practice leader for in Fiji.