On May 6th, ALARM Burundi held a training that was aimed at equipping 42 church leaders with knowledge and skills in servant leadership, peacebuilding, justice, reconciliation, and community transformation. Some of the key challenges that church leaders oftentimes face include ignorance, lack of spiritual transformation, lack of training, lack of vision, wrong assumptions on what peacebuilding, justice, and reconciliation are, and a fear of working with others.

As ALARM met with these leaders, the participants were able to identify the challenges that their churches and communities face with these topics and were able to determine solutions to overcoming these challenges in their churches and communities. One of the participants shared her testimony after attending the session – “Before I received these teachings, I believed that the economic development of the family is the responsibility of the men as well as the resolution of any problems or conflicts in the family or church. These teachings come to challenge me and open my mind to my role of peacebuilding in family, church, and economic development in my family and community. The skills and attitudes you provided me with will be of benefit to me to be useful in my family and community”.