South Africa spends a staggering amount each year on the costs of conflict. Crime and violence are estimated to cost the country more than R3 trillion annually—about 15% of GDP. Gender-based violence alone accounts for between R28 and R42 billion every year, while strikes and industrial action add billions more in losses. Schools are also drained by bullying and interpersonal conflict. Despite these massive expenditures, levels of violence continue to rise year on year, and despite decades of investment, traditional responses have failed to break the cycle of conflict.

From 16 to 18 September 2025, Khulisa Social Solutions will organise a three-day Community Conflict Mediation Training in Johannesburg. The programme aims to enhance peacebuilding skills at the grassroots level by incorporating restorative justice practices and psychosocial support tools into communities that face these issues regularly.

Khulisa has nearly three decades of experience in restorative justice and peace-making, pioneering interventions that heal fractured communities and empower people to resolve disputes without resorting to violence. Its Collaborative Implementation Model (CIM) provides a structured, data-driven framework to address the root causes of dysfunction and conflict at every level of community life—family, schools, workplaces, and broader society. By combining dialogue circles, narrative therapy, and capacity building, CIM enables communities to surface issues, co-design solutions, and create lasting change.

To lend global expertise to this South African initiative, Khulisa has partnered with the Society of Mediators (SoM), an internationally acclaimed professional body founded in the United Kingdom. Led by Jonathan Dingle, a world-renowned mediator and restorative justice trainer, SoM has trained thousands of mediators worldwide, including in post-conflict zones, schools, prisons, and divided communities. Their involvement brings both international credibility and world-class practice to the training, ensuring that participants receive the highest standard of mediation capacity-building.

This programme has attracted a diverse group of participants from seven provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo, North West, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Western Cape. They include NGO leaders, ward councillors, municipal officers, tribal authorities, social workers, and community facilitators. Bringing together such a wide spectrum of actors is intentional: it ensures that different players—government representatives, traditional authorities, and NGOs—sit at the same table to seek common solutions. This diversity of perspective and experience is crucial to building locally owned, inclusive, and sustainable peace.

Participants will be trained in psychosocial first aid, community facilitation, restorative justice and mediation, conflict mapping, and ethical monitoring and referrals. The training is designed to be practical and interactive, featuring live demonstrations, roleplays, and applied practice.

It is vital to empower participants at the local level, where conflict initially arises, because this is where early resolution can prevent escalation and build trust. By enabling community-based actors to respond directly, disputes can be managed in a manner that is timely, culturally appropriate, and sustainable.

This initiative goes beyond the classroom. After the training, participants will return to their communities to carry out real-life mediations based on issues identified in dialogue circles. These mediations will be recorded and become part of a national knowledge base to inspire and guide peacebuilding efforts across South Africa. Follow-up mentorship and observation will occur later in the year to reinforce learning and strengthen local mediation coalitions.

Through this collaboration, Khulisa and the Society of Mediators seek to build a resilient network of community-based peacebuilders who are capable of transforming division into dialogue, tackling the factors that drive conflict at all levels of society, and embedding sustainable conflict resolution practices across the nation.