Our Salamti Fellow, Ahmed Saleem organized a Peace Camp with the collaboration of Progressive Youth Movement – PYM, AJ&K. The event was conducted at the University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The session aimed to counter violent extremism and to develop a counter narrative through discourse and inculcating a sense of peace education among the young minds in the society. Peace education is a tool that inculcates the philosophy and the processes of non-violence to help us understand the conflict and violence in our lives and societies along with seeking ways to tackle and transform them. So, Ahmed took an initiative to carry out this activity in order to create an awareness about peace and conflict and improve social competencies. This kind of workshop was conducted for the first time in Muzaffarabad where students were engaged in capacity building regarding peace and countering violent extremism. Different discussions were made on topics like “Countering Extremist Narratives in Pakistan” and “Peace and politics: A local analysis” in order to provide an insight of different narratives and perspectives to the participants. Experts taken on board included Mr. Akram Sohail, Former Additional Chief Secretary to the Government of AJ&K and Mr. Khawaja Muhammad Naeem, Director-General Sports and Youth Affairs, Government of AJ&K. The event also sensitized the participants to partake in the peace building process in their respective communities
Special Operation
‘PEACE’ AND ‘CONFLICT RESOLUTION’
A focus group discussion
Venue:
Media Room, United Nations Information Center (UNIC) , Pakistan.
Date:
Friday, 28th June, 2019.
Organizer:
Ahmad Saleem.
No. of Participants:
“Six” participants took part in this activity at a short notice.
Background of Participants:
The participants that took part in this focus group discussion were an amalgamation of some senior UN permanent Employees working at the UNIC and some “Blue collar workers” from UNIC and ILO. Moreover, the participants represented diverse ethnic, cultural and even religious backgrounds.
Background of the activity:
The United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad, was established in March 1951. It serves as the primary secretariat agency for information dissemination related to UN and particularly in the case of United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). However, currently working as an intern there I observed a loop hole that the staff working there was generally unaware of the connotations of peace building and managing peace. Moreover, they were knew did not dwell upon such fundamentals of conflict and peace in any of their on the job trainings.
This dimension was identified as a window of opportunity for me, to act under the ambit of this task and achieve a bigger purpose. Therefore, I opted to engage the mildly educated helping staff along with professionals working at the organization, to target diverse strata of the population.
Overview of the event:
A basic presentation assisted focus group discussion was organized where each individual participant was free to answer the question displayed on the slide in an unstructured manner. The questions were 3 in number and touched the fundamentals peace and conflict and individual action. The questions were:
- What is peace for you personally?
- What are the sources of conflict in your community?
- What do you think you can do to mitigate these conflicts?
For easy understanding and comprehensive elaboration of answers, these questions were also translated and displayed in Urdu language.
Furthermore, at the completion of these questions a video was played for the audience that preached the wonders of teaching and learning, and how we can counter Violent Extremism through education. The link of the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79MTkVumCcQ
Outcomes:
This open discussion achieved the following outcomes:
- A better understanding of the priorities and difficulties of people in the office.
- Building consensus around achieving peace through personal action and pro-activeness.
- Getting an insight of problems faced by different communities and classes.
- Recognizing the value of education and particularly instilling values of tolerance and trust among young generations.
- Cherishing the necessity of collective action to achieve global peace.
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