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Opportunities for Youth Peacebuilding Initiatives
an article by Fanny Tittel-Mosser
On the 23rd of October 2012, Celina del Felice, a
PhD student at the Centre for International
Development Issues in the Netherlands, came to the
International Secretariat of UNOY Peacebuilders to
give a four hour training on Research, Evaluation
and Advocacy in Youth Peace Building Initiatives.
This is a short overview of the important
opportunities for youth that have been pointed out
by Celina and the UNOY staff during the training.
click on photo to enlarge
There is a strong tendency among politicians and
researchers to see youth as a problem to be
solved. However, by doing this, the potential of
youth as peace-builders is being overlooked.
Although these youths are equally affected by
various forms of violence, there are youth who
decide to act constructively towards building a
culture of peace.
Ignoring the role of youth in peacebuilding is
ignoring their unique power and potential to affect
social change. Celina makes five propositions on
their specific qualities:
1. Young people are more open to change
2. Young people are future-oriented
3. Young people are idealistic and innovative
4. Young people are courageous
5. Young people are knowledgeable about their
peers' realities
When taking these qualities into account, youth
could play an important role in several aspects of
conflict transformation. In conflict prevention,
they could have a monitoring or warning role for
hate speech on radio or in other media. In peace
making, parallel dialogues between youth with
different ideologies can be facilitated by youth
organisations. As peace builders, youth
organisations can function as social researchers
and witnesses. They could keep records of changes
of attitudes in their country and link this to the
conflict prevention. In addition, youth has the
unique capacity to imagine vision and look for
creative solutions.
Regarding youth peace building organisations, it
was agreed that it would be most useful for these
types of organisations to look at attitude changes
in the long-run to measure their impact. This can
be done by, for example, tracing participants
after five or ten years, a discourse analysis or
by doing a social network analysis. The latter
entails the creation of a net-map which
demonstrates the improvements of the participants
in social relations by using for example their
contacts on social media platforms such as
Facebook. Furthermore, opportunities for youth
advocacy work can be found in organizing on local
and regional level.
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DISCUSSION
Question(s) related to this article:
Is there a renewed movement of solidarity by the new generation?,
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by program area
