Youth Lab

The European Union-funded ALLY project intends to amplify young people’s constructive voices and agency in addressing diverse factors of violent extremist narratives in South Asia. In Pakistan, five ALLY fellows are using the skill and knowledge they gained from ALLY to do just that.

The five fellows – Aliya Harir, Bhoora Lal, Mahum Yaseem, Nizar Ahmed, and Sohail Ahmed – participated in ALLY’s regional training in August 2021. During this training, they came together with a common idea to establish a safe space among youth in Pakistan to promote values like social and civic responsibility (CSR) and provide opportunities for the youth to take part in community service. With ALLY technical and financial support, they designed the Social Action Plan “Youth Lab”. The idea is to provide enough knowledge, experience, expertise, motivation, and support to create an ecosystem to nurture sustainable leadership to address critical issues communities are facing.

“One of the more serious problems Pakistani societies currently face is the rise of religious intolerance. Behind this rise lies a breakdown of communication between the diverse religious and cultural elements within the country of various indigenous faiths, sects, religions, and cultures. We wanted to create a space for youths to express their opinions and listen to others because all the stories we hear or see must not be true. When diverse people, particularly youth, come to one platform, share, and learn from their experiences they understand each other better and deconstruct their pre-existing stereotypes.” – Bhoora Lal

The fellows engaged youth from Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Umerkot, and Quetta in various activities to increase and strengthen their capacity on breaking stereotypical perceptions. Youth Lab facilitated cross-culture dialogues and religious site visits in Umerkot on October 27, 2021, with 17 participants, and in Lahore on December 4, 2021, with 30 participants, and allowed youth to explore the world, deepen their understanding of diversity, and widen their perspectives.

“Participants visited religious places other than the religious places of their faith. This provided an opportunity to learn more about different faith systems and religions. It allowed them to clear their misconceptions and interact with the people. Once they learn the differences will help them to develop tolerance towards each other.” – Mahum Yaseem

Youth Lab is a platform of experiential learning through community service and activities focused on education, art expressions, and recreation for the youth to fully immerse themselves in new experiences, continuously soaking up new knowledge and expanding their vision of what is possible. The fellows have many things in mind when they talk about community service, and conducted online training workshops on January 22 and 23, 2022 to equip the 28 participants with the strategies, tools, and techniques to perform community services activities such as digital campaigns on CVE and social themes, community engagement sessions using creative mediums such as theatre, music, and sports to engage community members on themes of CVE and peacebuilding, penal discussions, multi-stakeholder roundtable dialogues, and addressing specific community issues/needs.

 “We aim to establish a country-level youth peace network to foster and develop increased learning by encouraging and supporting them to contribute to peacebuilding and lead their own youth-led projects. Through conducting capacity strengthening sessions on CVE [Countering Violent Extremism], training on fundraising and project management, and creation of linkages with CSR functions of private companies, we aim to enhance the capacity of network members to access funding pool as well as generate their own funding forCVE-focused social action projects in their campuses and communities through CSR partnerships.” – Aliya Harir

Pakistani youth now have a new space to express themselves without fear of judgment or discrimination thanks to Youth Lab. For more information about the Social Action Plan, please visit their Facebook page.