Healing the Wounds beneath the Peace!

At the opening of Hekima University College’s 4th Annual Research Week, renowned peacebuilder Dr. Tekla Wanjala delivered a deeply moving keynote address that blended lived experience, community wisdom, and decades of peacebuilding practice in Kenya.

She began by inviting participants to observe a moment of silence in honor of the late Right Honorable Raila Amolo Odinga, paying tribute to his lifelong dedication to justice and democracy.

Introducing herself as “a woman from the slopes of Mount Elgon,” Dr. Wanjala humbly noted that her message was not an academic paper, but a reflection born from the field of conflict transformation itself. She recounted her early years working among communities torn by the 1991–1992 ethnic clashes in western Kenya, long before she had formal training in peace studies.

“I was mediating before I even knew what mediation was,” she said, recalling how she engaged youth hiding in caves during the Mount Elgon insurgency and negotiated local truces. These early encounters, she noted, grounded her lifelong belief that real transformation begins at the community level, where conflict is personal, emotional, and deeply human.

Dr. Wanjala outlined the cycle of violence that continues to haunt Kenyan and African societies, resulting in historical and intergenerational injustices, inherited from colonial marginalization; collective trauma, shaping the “us versus them” mentality that divides communities, and politically instigated violence, particularly around elections, when leaders exploit ethnic grievances for power.

“Our conflicts are fought not across borders but across fences,” she said, illustrating how violence often erupts among neighbors, relatives, and even family members, leaving deep emotional scars. She shared a haunting story of a girl who watched her maternal uncle lead an attack on their home, a moment that shattered familial trust and illustrated the intimacy of local violence.

Moving through the “spectrum of conflict intervention,” Dr. Wanjala critiqued the reliance on military operations like Operation Okoa Maisha, which deepened suffering, formal justice systems, where fear and proximity make witnesses reluctant, superficial mediation efforts, often dominated by elites and detached from community realities, and humanitarian responses, which focus on relief rather than emotional healing. “These interventions may rebuild houses,” she said, “but they do not rebuild hearts.”

Drawing from post-conflict Mount Elgon, Dr. Wanjala described how returnees, both victims and perpetrators, were forced to coexist after resettlement. One widow, she recalled, would encounter her husband’s killer in the marketplace, still wearing the shirt her husband had on the day he died. Such moments, she said, show that peace agreements do not automatically heal social wounds. Without addressing these emotional and psychological traumas, societies risk “reviving old ghosts” with every election cycle, as younger generations inherit the pain and anger of their parents.

To illustrate pathways to transformative peace, Dr. Wanjala shared a landmark social healing project she led in Mount Elgon after the 2006–2008 conflict. Recognizing that “we are all affected,” her team gathered 20 women who included widows, bereaved mothers, and even the wife of a known militia executioner, into safe circles of dialogue.

Using images, storytelling, and biblical narratives, especially the story of Joseph and his brothers, participants began to confront grief, name trauma, and rediscover their shared humanity. For two days, the women mourned, wept, and reflected on how violence had shaped their behaviors and families. Gradually, awareness led to compassion. The breakthrough came when one woman stood and said, “Why are we discriminating against this woman? She was not there when her husband killed our sons.” In a powerful moment of reconciliation, the woman embraced her, symbolizing the healing of a community once divided by pain and guilt.

Dr. Wanjala concluded that true peacebuilding requires healing the unseen wounds, those carried in memory, emotion, and spirit. “We must move beyond relief and reconstruction,” she urged, “to reconciliation and restoration of relationships.”

Her message to scholars and practitioners was clear: “Research and policy must begin to listen to the silenced voices of the traumatized. Because until the inner wounds are healed, peace will remain fragile.”

Dr. Tekla Wanjala’s keynote set a profound tone for Hekima’s Research Week, reminding the academic community that resilience and transformation are not abstract theories, but lived realities forged in the heart of communities that choose to forgive, to remember, and to rebuild together.