Future Peace
Aiming to promote positive engagement of youth in the current context, Future Peace builds the capacity of young men and women across the country through training and skills development and provides them a space to showcase their knowledge and skills by encouraging them to organise activities such as peace cities.
Beneficiaries of Future Peace organised two peace cities in 2006, one in Anuradhapura during the Poson festival and the other in Katharagama during the Esala festival. Young organisers set up camps in these cities and raised awareness among the pilgrims by engaging with them through film shows and discussions.
Successes
The majority among the organisations who adopt the approach delegate the responsibility of planning and implementing the activities to young beneficiaries who have been a part of their initiatives. The involvement of planning and implementation promotes the ownership of the activities among the youth involved.
This involvement also allows a creative space for young planners to experiment. This space for innovation effectively sustains the interest of the people involved in the activities they plan and implement. A team leader who has been with Future Peace for a few years explained this vividly:
“We have had the opportunity to take more creative or imaginative approaches to spread the knowledge we have gathered. With Future Peace, we use very unconventional activities. For instance, we organised Peace Cities last year. Most organisations would conduct workshops to raise awareness on peace. Taking a different approach, we showed people the power of volunteering while giving them some knowledge about the conflict. We raised awareness on issues related to conflict by showing them films. It is more effective than spelling it out because people feel it. To feel it is better than listening to someone talk about it. We can see people change their minds. We have been given the training to approach people more creatively. We attract their attention and maintain it, especially the young. We, with Future Peace, create a context in which we can talk about conflict transformation actively and effectively.”
Elaborating the impact the group could have on the world outside, another young team leader of the same group confidently described:
“We know we could change, though only a little, the situation at our homes and in our villages. It is difficult to change our parents. But at least we have shown them that there is another side. Sometime back, it was only people living in the Tamil areas who talked about minority rights and we always looked at them with squint eyes. It is not the case anymore. People have begun to see people as people, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.”
The ability to confidently bring together people from diverse backgrounds and diverse interests, and effectively implement these initiatives is yet another success organisations adopting the approach highlighted. Despite the differences, youth capitalise on shared experiences and interests and adapt to the need of the situation while respecting each other. Implementers of this approach proudly claimed that they have not had to face any major issues when implementing these projects.
