Communal work days are an essential part of the Peace Community; specific days dedicated to tending to shared farm lands, planting crops for collective consumption, or tending to upkeep and maintenance around Peace Community lands. How and why were communal work days created? How do they add protection in the midst of conflict and what purpose do they serve?
“So, how did we begin to think about this? What was the first step? What they do is, when they find you alone, they tell you: Come here, you are this, or that, or who knows what…
And so, you feel humiliated and quiet, and if you continue like that, they will catch you, and they will tell you that you have to leave. Instead, when we are in community, and when we are working together, they have to confront all of us. And so, we began to think that we had to start working collectively. And this is how our community work days began. Our work days were designed as an essential principle in order to stand up against them. It is something that we have lived through and today, community work days continue because they are what give us strength”.