“Youth for Resilience; Galle, 2019” was held on 31st August as the final stage of The School Peace Club Project organized under Peace Ambassador’s Leadership Program by the International Youth Alliance for Peace (IYAP) Galle team.
IYAP is a youth-led non-profit organization working across in more than four South Asian Countries like; Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar, providing the Youth a platform to engage and create a better future through addressing youth related matters.
This program was conducted with 42 students out of 60 participants, including teachers and with honored presence of the Galle Zone Deputy Director of Education. Achieving the objectives of Inclusion and Equality considering the empathies of gender balance, the workshop was held at the Bona Vista College Rumassalla, Unawatuna with the combination of 2 Muslim and 2 Buddhist Schools from the region.
The workshop which was carried out as an “Active Citizens” initiative by the British Council Sri Lanka enabled the participants to identify several societal issues (drug use, smoking and various addictions) presented in their school and home environment, collaborating with each other to bring up solutions while promoting reconciliation and peace; the primary focus points of IYAP.
These dialogues on public issues and interests, offered the participants a challengeable two days with a Campfire night, in awakening their common sense and critical thinking to form individual opinions to handle and solve matters in a creative and logical manner. The interactive sessions that were carried out between both the speakers and the participants displayed the sole interest of the partakers.
Adding success to the program the aim was to shape young minds to inhabit critical thinking and eventually unlocking the energy within them that is required for independent learning and decision making. The prospect of this task was both daunting but exciting, because having the power to change one’s way of thinking could lead to disaster if not done in an appropriate manner, but the thought of being able to instigate a certain mindset for the betterment of society was exhilarating! As an organization and as individuals, we were thus presented with the greatest challenge of effectively molding the young minds of today sustainably, to a better future.