Gladys at the Head of the Procession | From Survival To Governance

Bahati Mubuya Gladys leads a group of women war returnees across the Shamba la Amani collective field in Mudja, Nyiragongo Territory, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on April 6, 2026.

Walking at the front of a procession of women and community members moving through tall grass toward the shared agricultural plot, Gladys embodies the kind of leadership she advocates for: visible, present, physical, and rooted in the land itself.

As international peace discussions for eastern DRC continue to unfold in distant capitals Nairobi, Luanda, Washington it is women like Gladys who are doing the daily, unglamorous, irreplaceable work of rebuilding trust between communities that conflict has torn apart, one shared harvest at a time.