Muzammil, an activist has stepped forward to counsel the youth of rural areas by sharing his own experiences and talking about the issues of our education system. Watch this documentary to know more about Muzammil’s initiative and the work he is doing in his community.

Special Operation

As a peace fellow, my job will be to uplift the society from its current position in terms of
awareness, conflict management, and active effort for a peaceful existence. But for that, it is
important to know where different segments of our society stand in terms of their knowledge
and opinions. To find that out, I conducted this short survey and discussion session with 5 friends
of mine who belong to very different parts of the country and have faced multiple conflicts,
violence, and discrimination in some form.
This activity was started as a focused group discussion, but I had to change the plans in the nick
of time due to issues in recording the conference call. Therefore, the responses were collected
in the form of videos afterwards and not the actual group DISCUSSION.
Participants:
The participants belong to Parachinar, South Punjab, Karachi, and United Kingdom. This ensures
diversity among the individuals and adds value to their opinions. All are aged between 21 and
23 years.
Outcomes/Observations:
1. The causes of violence are quite clear to most of the segments of the society, which
implies that our work should be focused beyond that.
2. Fortunately, there is a consensus that religion itself is not the source of violence, but its
misinterpretation and misrepresentation is. It is a huge chapter in itself, but it’s great that
people realize this fact.
3. People are not sure about what they can do to promote peace. They have very little idea
to counter the complications surrounding hatred and violence within and with other
communities. That’s where our job as peace fellows comes up, and this is the place to
start our active role towards promoting tolerance and peace: By developing strategies that
can be implemented at individual level, and by sharing them with others.
4. What should the government do in order to promote peace? Nobody has a concrete idea.
One good response, however, came from the Pushtoon brother in the group who stated
that we should focus on dialogues more than straight labels of “Ghaddar” and “Kafir”.