As part of the fellowship program under the EU-funded Amplifying Leadership of Local Youth (ALLY) project, two online workshops were held for the program fellows. The online workshops are part of the capacity building phase of the 30-month project which attempts to amplify young people’s constructive voices and agency in addressing diverse factors of violent extremist narratives in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
88 youth participants from these four South Asian countries took part in the meetings. The main objective of the first meeting was to reflect individual peacebuilding narratives and to conduct team building. Many of the participants had become peacebuilders due to their personal experience with conflict in their communities. When asked what they viewed as the, “top values in peacebuilding,” many responded with valued qualities including empathy, inclusivity, intersectionality, reconciliation, dialogue, compassion and diversity.
The EU-funded ALLY Fellowship programme had their second online meeting on Thursday June 10th. Prior to the meeting, the participants were requested to discuss about the concepts of peace, violence and conflict at the learning platform. Furthermore, the participants shared PVE related words in their own language. These thematic topics were further explored in the meeting. The discussions touched upon several issues – deeply rooted violence bred by structural and cultural inequalities, power dynamics, the power of language in shaping contexts and beliefs (including visions of peace), the challenge of addressing hate speech without being drawn into it, and the high hopes for young people’s role having such a great role in social transformation. These are just some of the topics that came out from the sharing of experiences and stories by the fellows. Despite the multiple issues that were brought up in the topics of the discussions, the feedback about the session was once again positive and the meeting was considered meaningful and interesting by the participants. The next session will focus on the concepts of violent extremism and multidimensional aspects and impacts of it.
ALLY is funded by the European Union and implemented in a consortium of partners, including: The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers/ Finn Church Aid, United Network of Young Peacebuilders, Rural Development Society, Center for Communication and Development, Youth Development Foundation, and Lanka Unites. The project starts in March 2020 and continues for 2,5 years.