We conduct VSG survivors’ and victims of SGBV meetings to provide counseling and other mental health and psychosocial support alongside information on where victims of SGBV can get Clinical Rape Management (CRM) services.

I-WIN successfully conducted (48) sessions with the VSG members during the project implementation period.

The biweekly VSG survivors’ meetings mainly were aimed at;

• Raising awareness and orientation on Transitional Justice components as detailed in chapter V of the R-ARCSS, its importance especially to the VSG members and how it functions.
• Providing training for the VSG members on their roles and participation as peace agents in their respective locations. The purpose of this is to Form and operationalize sustainable VSGs that can comfort and deliver free confidential support to the most vulnerable members of societies affected by all past human rights abuses even after the end of the project and offer mental health & psychosocial support to the affected vulnerable groups.

Key results/achievements during the sessions

• Through the sessions, a number of beneficiaries were in a position to gain free psychosocial support and counseling.
• The VSG leaders have also played a vital role in extending these psychosocial supports to communities that were not part of the Victim Support Group.
• The session has also inspired members to accept reconciliation among themselves and adopt peaceful means of resolving issues. VSG members have also been seen acting as mediators for peace within the community upon being inspired from these sessions.

In one of the sessions at Hai Kosti in Wau Christine a VSG leader had this to say “Ever since I started attending to these sessions, I don’t like to hear any form of quarrel in my neighborhood because I will immediately intervene. As a matter of fact, I have need nicknamed “mama peace’ because I always reecho these messages each time, I encounter misunderstanding in my neighborhood. I am also glad that I have been chosen as a group leader because it is upon these power that I have been able to visit different homes and talk to them about peace and reconciliation, provide counseling to women like me and encourage them that time will come when there will be no more injustices because the government will put in place laws that offers

justice to all”