TRF Trustee Chair
Recently I met Selu Polley, a Ugandan police officer and a member of the 25th class of Rotary Peace Fellows at the International Christian University in Japan.
Growing up next to the Nakivale refugee settlement in southern Uganda — one of the oldest and largest in the world — Selu knew some of its residents. Now he hopes to focus his peace fellowship research on Nakivale, to prepare him to serve his own community.
That conversation took me back to my own visit there in 2022 and reminded me that the seeds of peace can spring up where we least expect them.
Nakivale is home to more than 286,000 people who have fled conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and elsewhere, many of them women who walked for days and often weeks to reach safety.
Their stories will stay with me forever.
Every single one told me her husband had been murdered. Several had lost children to violence, hunger, or exhaustion. Through immeasurable grief, their presence was steady, dignified and resolute.
When I asked what they needed, not one asked for money. Not one asked for food or shelter. They asked for opportunity. They wanted the chance to build small businesses so they could feed their children and send them to school. Their request was simple and powerful: Help us create something that will last.
To that end, I have been working with Paul Mushaho, a first-cohort graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at Uganda’s Makerere University, who started Nakivale’s first Rotaract club. With support from The Rotary Foundation, we are funding a sewing room where these women can learn a trade, earn an income, and build stability. Through those clubs, young people in Nakivale see themselves not as survivors but as leaders.
As we celebrate Rotary Foundation Month in November and embark upon the 25th year of Rotary Peace Fellows, remember how far the Foundation has come, and the work of the more than 1,900 peace fellow alumni.
The journey to peace is begun by leaders like Paul, strengthened by the Nakivale women who refuse to give up hope, and carried forward by peace fellows like Selu.
Peace is not an abstract concept. It is an action, built one opportunity at a time, often by those who have endured the unimaginable and still choose hope. Through The Rotary Foundation, we can choose hope alongside them, and help it grow into something that lasts.
Jennifer Jones
TRF Trustee Chair