Bal Kumari Gurung
Country/region: Nepal
Conflict:Social Conflicts (ethnic, gender and faith)
Organisation: United Mission to Nepal
Field of work: Local capacities for peace, trauma healing, interfaith peacebuilding, cross border initiatives, gender justice and community mediation

Bal Kumari Gurung Bal Kumari Gurung works as a Peacebuilding Team Leader with United Mission to Nepal (UMN). She has more than 20 years of community development and 12 years of peace building experiences working with the poor, discriminated and divided communities. She has a master’s in Applied Conflict Transformation studies from the Pannasasstra University of Cambodia.

Her passion is to work for peace and social harmony at the grassroots for communities wounded by internal armed conflict, torn by injustice and discrimination and divided by social conflicts. She is from one of the hill ethnic groups in Nepal

As a development faith-based organization working only in Nepal, UMN works through the local partner organisations in various thematic sectors by enhancing their organizational and thematic capacities. Bal Kumari with her team are involved in strengthening the local partner organisations, community groups and key leaders to develop peaceful, harmonious, just, safe and secure communities.

Some of the initiatives that Bal Kumari has pioneered in UMN are:

• Mainstreaming local capacities for peace within UMN and its partner organisations and programmes to prevent harm and further conflicts and for a peaceful development intervention.

• Supporting a healing process of trauma for the survivors of internal armed conflict (especially widows) and natural disaster (flood) through a group trauma healing material and approach developed by UMN.

• Engaging different faith leaders for trust building and peacebuilding within their communities and advocate against violence linking with religion.

• Establishing peace infrastructures at the community to address cross border lootings and violence bordering with India.

• Addressing gender inequalities and violence through a community group empowerment process.

• Developing community mediators to resolve disputes/conflicts at the community level.

• Empowering the minority Christian community as peace builders to develop visions for peace and address violence between intergroups especially between the hill migrants and people residing in the plain areas.