The way forward: Youth’s role vital in peace building

Youth can play a crucial role in positively transforming conflict situations and building peaceful societies.

This was the crux of a workshop on peace building for youth, jointly organised by Search for Common Ground (SFCG)|Pakistan, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and DANIDA International.

An SDPI-SFCG press release said the speakers acknowledged youth as agents of peace and emphasised upon involving and partnering with young people for positive change, rather than considering them as a problem, aggressors or victims during the conflicts.

Titled “Young Leaders For Peace”, the 5-day training workshop which ended on Sunday provided an opportunity to young community leaders coming from 25 districts of Pakistan to discuss, understand, and reflect upon the issues of extremism, conflict, intolerance and peace building in Pakistan.

Participants of the workshop would later be facilitated to work closely with local leaders and decision makers to implement local initiatives to build peace in their communities.

Speaking at the concluding session, SFCG|Pakistan Country Director Ammara Durrani highlighted the importance of dialogue, saying, “Every positive social change depends upon our dialogue with self and with each other. Dialogue based on respect and reconciliation is the most effective at transforming and resolving conflict.”

“Peace is all about understanding each other’s perceptions and one of the purposes of this training was to build synergies and understand each other’s perceptions,” concluded SDPI Executive Director Dr Abid Suleri.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2012.