Rachel Reed Alice Yangi, from Eastern Equatoria in South Sudan, who has 12 children: "Women can bring peace in this world by educating those who are ignorant about peace. If you know what peace is, you go and tell others how peace can change someone’s life."

Over 1 million people have fled ethnic cleansing and famine in South Sudan, most of them women and children. In this photo and video essay, Angela Wells and Rachel Reed meet the female leaders and refugee women in Uganda who have become warriors for peace.

BOROLI SETTLEMENT, UGANDA – Opia Joyce is raising 14 children, both her own and those of her dead brother. She is also the leader of a community group of three dozen women, all South Sudanese refugees in Uganda likeherself.

She counsels them when they are in distress, advocates on their behalf to humanitarian groups working with refugees in Uganda and finds foster parents for abandoned children.

Joyce is a women’s affairs leader in Boroli, one of 18 refugee settlements in Uganda’s Adjumani district. She was born in South Sudan, but her father brought the family to Uganda shortly after she was born to prevent her from having a childhood overshadowed by war. She stayed in Uganda for 21 years before going home to South Sudan in 2011. But after two years, when peace did not last, Joyce returned to Uganda.

In January last year, Joyce was appointed by women in the camp to lead the community group. “They chose me because they’ve seen that I have so many children