Search for Common Ground (SFCG) Pakistan honoured five youth leaders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with small grants for presenting innovative ideas to build a peaceful community in a ceremony organised in partnership with PAIMAN Alumni Trust on Wednesday.
The chief guest of the ceremony, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Local Government, Elections and Rural Development, Inayatullah Khan, and the guest of honour Deputy head of EU delegation to Pakistan, Pierre Mayaudon, distributed Small Grants Award certificates among the five winners of project proposal writing competition. This award will generate new ideas to be implemented in future, said Pierre Mayaudon in his remarks. He called the Grants Awardees "ambassadors of peace" in KPK and Fata.
KPK Minister Inayatullah Khan speaking on the occasion announced that his government wanted to promote youth leadership and will allocate five percent seats for youth in every district, tehsil and village of the province. Peace is a rare commodity in our area now, Inayat commented. SFCG Executive Director Ammara Durrani in her remarks said youth leaders being honoured here today have been selected through a rigorous, merit-based and transparent grant application process led by an independent Grants Selection Committee comprising well-known, respected civil society and media representatives possessing life-long experience and contributions for peace and development in the region.
The three-member Evaluation Committee comprised CRSS Executive Director Imtiaz Gul, Peshawar University Political Science Department Faculty Member Dr Rauf Khan and SFCG Global Director on Children and Youth Programmes Saji Prelis. Around a dozen youth leaders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata took part in the competition by submitting project ideas through a competitive process conducted during September-October. The committee members conducted a collective evaluation and review in Islamabad and selected top five submissions for awards, thus ensuring transparency, impartiality and accountability of the award granting process.
The ceremony also marked successes and achievements of the European Union funded project entitled "Promoting Peace in KPK and Fata: Connecting Youth and Policymakers through Mediation and Dialogue" SFCG Pakistan has been implementing in partnership with PAIMAN. The project aims to build the capacity of youth non-state actors (NSAs) and policy-makers in mediation and dialogue and link youth with policy-makers in order to find effective solutions to conflicts at the community level.
Under the project, SFCG Pakistan and PAIMAN organised 12 primary capacity-building trainings for 301 youth from 25 districts of KPK and Fata, an advance level training for 27 short listed youth and an orientation workshop for 25 policymakers from KPK and Fata.
Moreover, the beneficiaries of advanced level trainings organised district-level "Youth Initiative for Peace and Development Forums" in their respective localities. Each forum brought together 20 participants from local communities selected on the basis of their interest in peace building and voluntary work. A total of 500 community members from KPK and Fata were engaged in the dialogue that took place in existing community facilities in the 25 target districts.
Through this project, two Networking sessions, each spanning four days, were also conducted in Peshawar and Islamabad to link policy-makers and youth on issues discussed at district dialogue forums. Networking sessions provided an opportunity for youth and policy-makers to apply their skills with regard to mediation, dialogue and peace building learned at training and orientation sessions. Furthermore, youth also got an opportunity to highlight the work they undertook at district dialogue forums, including the impact on their communities and their future plans regarding key outcomes.
"We must empower youth to create an inspiring identity and a proactive role for themselves in their communities by providing them opportunities to practice community leadership in collaboration with key stakeholders responsible fore peace and security," Ms Durrani said.