Riya William Yuyada Is the founder of Crown The Woman-South Sudan, Co-founder of PLAY FOR PEACE SOUTH SUDAN, a TedX Kakuma refugee camp 2018 speaker and is a South Sudanese woman who is passionate about peace and women’s human rights. She is best known for her role in peace building in schools and communities and also being part of the South Sudan HLRF (High Level Revitalization forum) peace process. Having worked as a Civic Education Officer, she recalled an experience where an elderly woman of about 80 years told her that she was too young to preach about peace because she didn’t know what had happened to them. Riya then started working with children teaching them peaceful co-existence through games. She realized that it was easier to convince a child to choose peace than an adult. She then decided to invest her energy in children through Play for Peace South Sudan, an initiative she co-founded that promotes peace using games.
She is the co-founder of #MamaraSakit Campaign, which means she’s not just a woman, a campaign that has been advocating against derogatory culture against women, and recently initiated a campaign #BornToLead/women at the frontlines/NuswanGidaam, which is advocating for women’s inclusion at all levels of leadership and defining peace with a feminist lens. Riya has addressed the UN General Assembly in 2018 in New York. A member of the 10 (ten) Advisory Group (AG) to the United Nations Trust Fund (UNTF); on ending violence against women and girls. A group that is providing the UNTF on ending violence towards women and girls, its partners and relevant stakeholders with a clear vision and roadmap for the UNTF EVAW’S strategic direction and growth between 2021 and 2025. She also writes with the AfricanFeminism.
Riya is an alumna of the 2019 International Global leadership institute (IGLI) at the University of Denver in partnership with the US State Institute for peace (USIP), the 2019 European Parliament Sakharov fellowship, alumna of the 2019 Venice school of human rights in Italy, the 2018 Women’s Human Rights Institute at the university of Toronto, the 2017 Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership program (IVLP) on education and women’s activism, the 2016 Young African Leadership Program, the Feminist Leadership, Movement Building and Rights Institute East Africa, the 2015 Nobel Women’s Initiative’s Sister-to-Sister Mentorship program in Canada, a fellow of Akilidada Washa program and a 2019 fellow with the women peace and security program by the University of Columbia. Riya is a member of the African women leaders network.
