Grounded in Healing

Title: Grounded in Healing: Lessons from Sudan on Trauma, Youth, and Resilient Peace 

Sudan's ongoing conflict has upended lives and destabilized key regions, particularly in Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan. Through the Building Inclusive Peace in Sudan (BIPS) initiative, a clear pattern has emerged: when local youth and civil society actors are empowered to lead peacebuilding efforts, they consistently prioritize addressing the psychosocial stresses of conflict and displacement as their foundational intervention, underscoring that healing and emotional resilience are essential preconditions for any meaningful peacebuilding, development, or human security focused work. 

This session will explore how trauma awareness and psychosocial support have become central to locally led peacebuilding efforts in Sudan, shaping how communities restore trust, mobilize for action, and respond to emerging threats. BIPS has learned to support this community-driven approach that naturally integrates psychosocial support, peacebuilding, and adaptive security interventions. The program shows that effective peacebuilding in Sudan's context requires following communities' instinctive understanding that trauma awareness must precede sustainable dialogue and reconciliation, leading to peacebuilding as both a developmental and protective intervention. 

To engage participants in this vital discussion, the session will use a highly interactive virtual format designed to foster reflection, peer learning, and cross-context exchange. Participants will begin with a brief multimedia grounding in the Sudanese context, followed by real-life stories from youth peacebuilders. Breakout groups will provide space for small-group dialogue on trauma-informed peacebuilding, youth leadership, and countering harmful narratives, with shared insights feeding into a live panel discussion. Polls, Q&A, and a collaborative digital insight wall will ensure participant voices shape the conversation. 

Participants will engage in dialogue centered on four key themes: 

• Trauma-informed approaches as a foundation of peacebuilding - How conflict-sensitive capacity building and psychosocial support create the necessary conditions for sustainable dialogue and reconciliation 
• Youth-driven Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) - Examining locally led, agile structures that serve as nodes for early warning, mediation, and humanitarian coordination while bridging formal and informal peace infrastructures 
• Technology for peace and counter-narratives - The role of digital literacy, counter-narrative campaigns, and digital storytelling in addressing hate speech, disinformation, and promoting social cohesion 
• Adaptive programming under extreme constraints - How development and peacebuilding programs can maintain flexibility, local ownership, and sector integration when traditional approaches face extraordinary security and access limitations 

Moderator: Alexandra Altomare 

Speakers: 

• Maha Tambal, Senior Program Director, DT Institute 
• Rounag Shimila, General Manager, Environment and Rural Women's Development Organization ERD. 
• Esmat Omar Ibrahim, CEO, Graduate Producer Association GPA 
• Sufian Eltegaani Adam, Program Director, Salaamedia Center Limited