Honouring Sheku Anna Chundung
We are deeply saddened by the premature death of an amazing young peacebuilder, Sheku Anna Chundung. Sheku Anna left a bright and energetic mark on all of those she came across, as well as those who had the opportunity to hear her story and learn about her unwavering commitment to build sustainable peace in Nigeria.
Anna Sheku was an invaluable member of the Interfaith Dialogue on Violent Extremism (iDove) youth network, having recently attended the 2023 iDove Youth Intercontinental Forum in Helsinki, Finland. In addition, Sheku Anna was a recipient of a small grant focused on promoting youth collective action for the defence of pluralism and non-violent political participation and to increase youth voices in communities divided by violent conflicts in the Plateau North of Nigeria. Sheku Anna was also short-listed as a candidate for the new iDove small grant program focused on gender transformative programming and was one of the core-drivers of the iDove Governance structure process.
We will remember her dedication and joy and hold onto the image of her sharing her ideas for building resilience and social cohesion in communities affected by violent extremism.
Learning and Building Capacity to Prevent Violence Extremism
A youth reflection piece by Sheku Anna Chundung, former Project Manager at Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse (YIAVHA) and former Coordinator for the Youth Interfaith Relations Network.
As the winter winds had started to blow, and clocks were being changed around the globe, Eighteen young peace practitioners from around the world all came to the beautiful town of Helsinki, Finland for the iDove Interfaith Youth Forum. We were all familiar with each other as the Forum had provided an online working space for us, which made it easier to bond when we met physically. This was accompanied with the warm welcome received from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
While in Helsinki, the iDove Forum provided a learning opportunity for local peacebuilders to share experiences and learn from one another. The learning became more interesting as we learned about gender inclusivity through a different lens. As a young interfaith practitioner working in my local community, I came with my understanding of gender equality as ensuring a balanced number of women and men in an intervention and not working through the barriers to ensure inclusivity. Through training obtained from the United Nations Office on Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, I learned a new perspective to gender inclusivity, especially in the context of preventing of violence extremism. I was given examples of practical ways to apply gender inclusivity and ways to remove barriers. I took that along with me back to Africa, where I knew patriarchal norms and ideologies are some of the major barriers to gender equality.
Sheku Anna Chundung visiting Oodi Library in Helsinki, Finland.
Sheku Anna Chundung with iDove cohorts share a photo in Helsinki, Finland.
Amidst the learnings, the Forum offered us the opportunity to build the future of iDove by building a governance framework, which was successful through the wonderful brainstorming session we had with the support of the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers. The process aimed at building a more formidable platform that all continents can participate in to help prevent violence extremism through interfaith dialogues across the globe.
The goodbyes made me realize that GIZ and the African Union had created a world which allowed for peace to be nurtured by love through the mechanism of an iDove Intercontinental Forum.
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