By Stella Vuzo
NAIROBI, 15 October 2026 ¡ª More than 50 women peacebuilders from 43 countries are meeting this week at Maanzoni Lodge, outside Nairobi, to share mediation experiences from their communities. Almost every participant interviewed named the same threat: gender-based violence.
The week-long gathering of the Creators of Peace network runs from 11 to 17 October. It also marks 35 years of the network¡¯s work. The women met to compare strategies for mediating gender-based violence, racism and other conflicts in their societies.
¡°What are the stories we are telling our children, and what hate stories are we handing over to the generations to come?¡± asked the network¡¯s Vice President, Elisabeth Laskar. She described this as the cycle the women are working to end.
Women interviewed by the United Nations Information Service cited cases of gender-based violence from Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Sudan, Kenya, India and the United Kingdom. Other fears depend on local conditions. ¡°In Nigeria, women are afraid of banditry, rape and kidnapping,¡± said Adebukola Aroke from Nigeria. Mary Kuket, from Baringo County in Kenya, pointed to femicide and hate speech.
How the peace circles work
The network¡¯s core method is the ¡°peace circle,¡± a small group of about ten women, usually from the same locality. Members agree to speak honestly and to listen with care. What is said in the circle stays in the circle. Laskar said this confidentiality is what allows participants to speak openly from lived experience.
Every circle is rooted in its own community, but all of them follow a shared framework that gives the conversations a common structure. A circle is not a debate to be won or a forum for quick fixes. It is a place to tell a story, to listen without judgment, and to consider what responsibility and change might look like beyond the room.
¡°Across all borders, the peace circles meet the need for a respectful space back in our communities ¡ª to name harm, hear different perspectives, find points of connection and find solutions,¡± Laskar said.
Keep it small
Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa, addressed the gathering. She urged the women to resist the pressure to scale up. ¡°A movement that succeeds is often tempted to grow by becoming more like the institutions around it,¡± she said. ¡°Your strength has always been that a few women in a room, listening to each other properly, can change things that large meetings leave untouched.¡±
Men in the room
Women lead the work, but men are welcome. Stephen Kimaru of Initiatives of Change Kenya was one of the few men who took part. He said he joined because he witnessed Kenya¡¯s 2007 post-election violence and is committed to women¡¯s rights.
Participants see women¡¯s influence at home as central to prevention. ¡°Women have a very important role to play in the family,¡± said Mary Kuket. ¡°We can talk to children before they become men, and we can also influence the men in our families to change.¡±
After 35 years, the network does not promise that one conversation can undo deep-rooted injustice. Its members hold to a simpler conviction: that change can begin when people are given the space to hear one another and imagine what comes next.
