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Standing With Each Other

From a week of sensitization workshops in April 2024 to a women's group washing an elderly neighbor's hair in June 2026, this is women's engagement in Dire Dawa's peacebuilding program — the discourse, the training, the civic action, and finally the quiet, undocumented kind of care no banner ever announces.

EU & Sweden (at different points) Technical partner: Life & Peace Institute Dire Dawa, Ethiopia
Apr 2024Sensitization
May 2024Training & dialogue
Dec 2024Cleaning campaign
Jul 2025GBV workshop
Jun 2026Supporting an elder

One thing worth stating plainly: the funder branding actually changes partway through this story. The April–May 2024 events are EU-branded (alongside the Life & Peace Institute and EDI); from December 2024 onward, the banners show Sweden instead. Both are reported here exactly as photographed, not smoothed into one narrative.

I.Apr 20 & 27, 2024 · Dire Dawa

Building the Case

Two events a week apart, both centered explicitly on women's role in peacebuilding. Banner, April 20: "Sensitization Workshop On 'Fostering the role of women for national peace building process in Dire Dawa administration.'" Banner, April 27: "Panel Discussion On 'Gender Equality and Its Contribution for Peace Building,' Karamara Hotel."

Close-up of the sensitization workshop banner, April 20 2024, with EU and Life and Peace Institute logos
Four women and one man in animated discussion on red chairs, banner visible behind them
Group of about twenty men, women and a child posed outdoors holding the Gender Equality panel discussion banner
Circle of women in colorful headscarves in animated small-group discussion at a round table
II.May 14 & 18, 2024 · Karamara Hotel, Dire Dawa

From Training to Dialogue

Banner, May 14: "Capacity Building Training On 'Meaningful Participation of Women's in Peace Building Processes and Conflict Management.'" Banner, May 18: "Inclusive community dialogue with stakeholders on strengthening women's engagement in peace building process."

Large mixed group of about thirty people posed outdoors holding the Capacity Building Training banner, May 14 2024
Facilitator at a laptop and projector addressing a seated circle of participants
Large mixed group posed outdoors holding the Inclusive Community Dialogue banner, May 18 2024
Four people standing before a projected bilingual English and Amharic closing slide
III.Dec 22, 2024 · Dire Dawa

Cleaning Together, Building Peace Forever

The T-shirt slogan gives the chapter its title. Participants — men and women together, several women in masks and headscarves — swept streets and cleared roadside debris across an early morning, Sweden, Life & Peace Institute, and EDI all branded on the shirts.

Two women in white campaign T-shirts and face masks sweeping a paved street with a handmade broom
Two women in matching white T-shirts and masks standing on a palm-lined street
Participants gathered near a small burning pile of cleared debris, smoke rising
Group of about eight participants in Cleaning Together, Building Peace Forever T-shirts walking together carrying brooms
IV.Jul 11–12, 2025 · East Star Hotel, Dire Dawa

Capacity Building Workshop for Women

A two-day workshop under the program's full name — Community-Led Conflict Transformation through Participatory Action Research (PAR) — that included direct training on gender-based violence, visible on a projected slide titled "Perpetrators of Gender Based Violence."

Close-up workshop banner: Sweden, Life and Peace Institute, EDI, Capacity Building Workshop for Women, July 11-12 2025, East Star Hotel
Wide interior shot of about twenty-five women seated in a circle in a decorated hotel hall
Two facilitators beside a projected slide titled Perpetrators of Gender Based Violence
Small group of seven women in conversation with a standing facilitator
Facilitator speaking to a full circle of seated women in the afternoon session
V.Jun 18, 2026 · Woreda 08, Dire Dawa

A Women's Group Stands by an Elder Neighbor

No banner announces this one — just a group of women carrying water to an elderly neighbor's doorway, washing her hair, and sitting with her. It's the most specific, human moment in this whole story, and the only chapter without printed signage to confirm the program details, so it's presented here as what the photographs themselves show.

Group of about ten women and two men with arms around an elderly woman dressed in white at the center, smiling
Hillside view over Dire Dawa with a turquoise-domed mosque and dense rooftops
Several women arriving at a stone house carrying yellow water jerry cans
A woman in a pink dress washes the hair of a seated elderly woman at a stone doorway
A woman kneels to tend to the elderly woman while another hands a bowl to a second seated woman
Inside a small room, two women attend to an elderly woman seated on a floor mat

A note on this draft

The folder for Chapter I/II's May event is labeled "May 27, 2024," but its own banner reads "Date: 18/05/2024" — the banner date is used here. Chapter V has no printed signage anywhere in its photos; the connection to the program is contextual (its place in the organized archive), not confirmed on-camera. A separate "Woreda 09 Cleaning Campaign - 2025" folder was deliberately left out of this story — its participants were overwhelmingly male, so it didn't fit a women's-focused narrative.

What's missing: the names of the women's group and the elder woman in Chapter V, any outcome data from the GBV workshop, and first-person testimony throughout. Program staff should add those before this goes to a funder.

EDI · Draft photo story · Not for external distribution