Community Leadership

Like all large scale changes, South Sudan’s independence has brought forth opportunities and challenges. As local communities begin to move from old to new cultural patterns, questions arise concerning emerging roles, responsibilities, and processes, especially pertaining to community leadership. PESS’ Community Leadership Development team is committed to helping the indigenous communities of rural South Sudan create a self-sustainable and self-perpetuating model of growth. As traditional, military and church leadership merge into new leadership paradigms, PESS strives to leverage the indigenous knowledge of leadership to empower local people.

The major sets of issues that these communities must deal with include:

Survival, growth and adaption in their changing environment

Internal integration that permits daily functioning and the ability to adapt and learn. In light of this     tremendous transformation South Sudan is presently experiencing, PESS seeks to support a     dynamic and culturally relevant model of leadership adaption.

PESS defines leadership as a process whereby leaders create, change and manage groups of individuals within a culture of shared membership and history for a common positive goal. Leaders carry out this process by developing their skills within their community and expanding their knowledge and awareness of environmental changes that impact their community livelihood. We practice and teach a five step process that leaders use to identify a progression of actions to define issues/problems that leads to action planning and implementation.

Identifying purpose – why we cooperate

Roles – who does what, how we relate

Rules – what the guidelines are

Process – how we cooperate

Mobilize – put ideas into action

Project Education South Sudan is currently developing community leadership pilot programs in collaboration with local communities. We are seeking grants and resources to further this work in 2013.