To promote peace education among the youth and raise awareness towards social actions among young people, Peace Shapers in partnership with American Negotiation Institute and United Nations Information Center (UNIC) Lagos, held a two-day training recently.
The event, which came under the theme, ‘Bridges2peace boot camp, also aimed to inspire and equip young people with the knowledge and skills to shape peace and transform in both their personal and social lives to become more resilient and tolerant individuals, and then step towards a wider peace-building process in their immediate communities.
Speaking at the event, National Information Officer United Nations Information Center (UNIC), Oluseyi Soremekun said the partnership was predicated upon the fact that the foundation of the United Nations was built on the quest for global peace and security adding, “any organisation that is working in that space, promoting peace and tranquillity, peace and security, pushing the narrative of conflict resolution and peacebuilding will be of interest to us.”
On the United Nations Security Council resolution 2250 (UNSC) titled, ‘Youth Peace and Security, he explained that the resolution highlights the importance of youths in building peace.
He said: “It also highlights the essential roles of young people in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
“So, UNSC resolution 2250 also highlighted the six pillars, when we are talking about youth peace and security, it says there should be prevention, young people should be involved in the process of preventing violence, preventing conflicts, it has participation, the process of peacebuilding should be participatory, it should involve everyone and in this case, it should involve the young people who are mostly at the front line of conflict, it also include protection, you have to protect the peace of our environment, then there is disengagement, there is reintegration even where people have been arrested or convicted, we should not discard them, there is a way we can re-orientate and reintegrate them into the society so that they can also be useful to the society, that is why the formally called prisons are called the correctional centres.”
Stressing the need for youths not to allow themselves to be used by anyone to perpetuate conflicts or violence, he said: “If we interrogate cases of conflict and violence anywhere including our country, one will discover that sometimes, it is not always, the people one sees at the for the front that is the originator of the violence, it will be discovered that there are some people probably older than the people we are seeing fighting”.
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However, he appealed to the young to eschew every form of violence and added that they should resist any attempt to recruit them to perpetrate trouble especially as the nation is heading towards the 2023 general elections.
“But it is for them to say no, to resist every attempt to be recruited as a tug or as a somebody that will distort the electoral process,” he added.
He, therefore, called on the youths to channel their youthful energies and strength, to enhance their creativity, potential, their networking ability, skills towards building a culture of peace in their space.
“They should cultivate the culture of peace, whether at home, an association of gatherings and their communities. They should put together those talents, technology that they know how to use best, put everything together to promote peace in Nigeria”.
Speaking earlier, Executive Director, Peace Shapers, Oluwaseun Kolawale affirmed that the training which had participated youths between the ages of 15 and 25 would enable the participants to be stronger leaders, equip them with skills to transform conflict into peace anywhere themselves.
According to her, the training would also encourage them to understand their roles in actualizing self-development goals.
Adebayo Ajayi, who spoke on ‘Young leaders for peace leadership development,’ defined leadership as the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal.
Ajayi, who is one of the facilitators at the training went further to describe a leader as one who inspires and motivates action and added that having a can-do personality and strong leadership skills is the key to leading the change.
While explaining that peace has always been among humanity’s highest values, he had a conflict as a balancing of powers among interests, capabilities, and wills.
Enumerating some influential leaders in the world, he said they include; Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jnr, Pope John Paul II, Goodluck Jonathan, among others.
To him, many people exhibit the characteristics exemplified in the above-mentioned leaders, adding “but circumstances have largely prevented them from being visible to us.”
Speaking on ‘Emotional intelligence in building a culture of peace: anger management and effective communication’, Adetola Ogbebor said that anger can be properly managed by identifying the problem that caused the anger.
To use anger management and effective communication to build a culture of peace, Adebayo advised on the need for individuals to be intentional and take time to pause so that they can reflect on their actions.
On her part, Ruhamah Ifere who spoke on ‘Building the peace culture: youths as an agent of peace in Nigeria,’ said that there were two types of peace which she said include; positive and negative types.
While describing positive peace as attitudes, institutions and structures that creates and sustains peaceful societies, she said negative peace is the absence of violence or fear of violence.
On the other hand, she called on all to be part of peacebuilding in society.
On his part, coordinator, UNESCO University Network on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue, Suraj Olunifesi Adekunle who spoke on “Role of media and information literacy in building a Peaceful society,’ quoted UNESCO’s Maxim and said: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the bastion and defences of peace must be constructed.”
Adekunle who is of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, stressed the need for every citizen to have access to media skills and intercultural dialogue experience to become a full participant in the social, cultural, economic, and political future of the society.
For the citizens to understand the media, he said that they should be able to decode or interpret and distinguish textual construction, generic conventions, rhetorical devices, production imperatives and institutional structures.
Considering common mistakes in media and information literacy in public education, he said: “It becomes increasingly clear that the proliferation of digital media must be addressed by the education sector, however efforts to isolate applied skills from critical skills also has the potential for more clashes over curricular turf in formal schooling.
He concluded by reminding the participants that a media and intercultural dialogue literate society is not a luxury, adding, “it is a necessity in the 21st Century and because media and culture are so omnipresent in modern society, it is no longer simply an advantage to be media and intercultural literate, but a debilitating disadvantage not to be.”
