Peace starts with YOUth

📣📣📣 Call for participants is now open! Send your application –> Here 📝

📆 DEADLINE to apply : MARCH 25th

The project is characterized by the recent trends that have been changing attitudes towards youth participation in peacebuilding on the international level and have been creating a new context that focuses on the importance of youth’s full inclusion in peacebuilding processes. A fundamental shift was marked by the UN resolution 2250(2015) on Youth, Peace, and Security which recognized the role of young people as a positive force in maintaining peace and security.

It is aimed to empower young, to create opportunities for youth from diverse backgrounds in the Western Balkans and Italy to identify common priorities for peace, reconciliation, and security and enter into constructive dialogue with their peers across divides, enhance their confidence in and dialogue with decision-makers and strengthen their capacity to become actors for change. Youth will become active defenders of the peace in their local realities and contribute to more peaceful and inclusive societies by providing them with the necessary skills and tools through non-formal education practices. The project is focusing on young people with fewer opportunities and diverse backgrounds, by promoting inclusion and intercultural exchange through peer-to-peer initiatives.

It will strengthen cooperation on peace and security among youth activists in participating countries by providing a training course, formation, follow-up activities and an online platform for constructive dialogue to exchange ideas and opinions. The priority of the project is to give young people skills and space to express their vision of peace and security in their communities, their views on current affairs as well as their suggestions for resolving community issues.

The main tools we will use to achieve our goal are Non-Formal Education and Peer Education. Through this project we expect to reach the following objectives:

1. To create and disseminate new approach for involving young people in peacebuilding and security based on non-formal education methodology, human rights approach as well as the Kingian non-violence approach;

2. Creating empowering opportunities for youth to develop the competencies needed to participate proactively and constructively in reshaping societies toward a more peaceful and respectful community

3. Develop online safe spaces for dialogue on issues of security and peace on both community, regional and international levels through digital communications, mobility, and online activities;

Timeline: