18 May 2023, Johannesburg – During the year 2022, following Khulisa’s training of 10 Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in dialogue circles and peace-making, the subsequent growth has led to numerous dialogue circles reaching many people from foreign demographic groups.

Khulisa conducted several dialogue circle training workshops with various NGOs, in Alexandra with the intention to equip members with sufficient knowledge, skills, and abilities to conduct their own community-led sessions in their regions, specifically aimed at peace-making and restorative justice.
An evaluation session on 24 April 2023 enabled the 10 previously trained NGOs to provide feedback regarding their own experiences and the efficacy of the community-led sessions. Collectively, the NGOs have rolled out approximately 80 dialogue circles reaching an average of 800 people, targeting a range of diverse individuals, such as children and youth, parents, people living with disabilities and their family members, survivors of crime, formerly incarcerated offenders, people recovering from drug addiction, and women cleaning the Jukskei River.

An overwhelming 100% of NGO members stated that the training enhanced the quality of their services and offered them the opportunity to assist other community-based entities, for example ADAPT, Alex Youth Team, ANGOF, churches, ECD centres, and victims of violence.
Tshilidzi Godfrey Mashamba, a resident of Alexandra for 27 years from the NGO Lion of Juda, said, “I have been involved in community work for a very long time, community members who are facing
challenges would normally approach me for advice, but ever since I have been introduced to the peace-making dialogue circle my concept of conflict resolution and addressing issues in my community totally changed. I found dialogue sessions to be more relevant and effective in my space of intervention because initially, we were doing more of one on one intervention which was time- constraining and audience-limiting, we could not impact a large group of people, but the dialogue
circles allow us to impact a large number of people and the peace-making circles create a safe space for deep-rooted issue troubling the community at large or personally to come out to the surface allowing us to deal with the root problem of the issue.”

Chris Ndlovu from the Thusong Youth Center, who has been a resident of Alexandra for 7 years, said, “Before I was not trained and not introduced to dialogue circles I was just an ordinary person with a
lot of challenges when I engage with youth and the community. I used to struggle a lot in trying to
solve issues in my community. After Khulisa trained me on how to facilitate a dialogue circle, I now hold a dialogue circle every Thursday with community members with different issues come and
attend the sessions and the feedback is always positive, because of the impact the dialogue session the attendance is now more than 20 per session, the attendees state that due to the dialogue circle, they now have peace in their families, in their relationships and also within themselves, for the dialogue session has helped them to heal from childhood traumatic experiences.”

In several cases, the beneficiaries have also master-trained other entities in several provinces with Khulisa’s methodology. Furthermore, there is a need for additional training to broaden their range of restorative justice methodologies and in collaboration with Khulisa, to expand the scope of peacemaking within their own communities which will lead to enhanced financial sustainability as professional fees will be levied.

Finally, as the intensity of dialogue circles increases, there has been a
unanimous call for social workers and counselling services to assist with the increased complexity of the nature.