Youth Leadership Development for Community Peacebuilding

With support from the European Commission, Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Endowment for Democracy and the US State Department, SFCG runs a comprehensive youth and peacebuilding program, working with young leaders at multiple levels of society. The project aims to facilitate the participation of youth in the peace and democratization process. In this project, SFCG works with a wide range of young leaders including those who have been deeply affected by armed conflict in rural areas to politically engaged youth in urban centers.

Youth Leadership Development Model

In rural areas, SFCG has observed that young people have been organizing clubs and youth organizations in their communities as ways of protecting themselves from recruitment into violence and addressing some key social and economic issues in their communities. Yet, many of these groups are divided and in conflict with one another. SFCG has implemented a youth leadership for peacebuilding initiative in rural areas throughout the Mid and Far West of the country. Field staff map out the youth groups in our target areas to understand how they are organizing. From there, we invite those we deem to be multiplier youth, those who have an influence among their peers, to participate in an initial leadership training. The group, who have come together from across dividing lines, enter into a dialogue process to analyze the effects of conflict in their communities. They then develop projects together that address root causes of conflict.

The results of this project have been encouraging. In many districts, youth groups have come together from across dividing lines to create networks for peace and are organizing peacebuilding activities such as providing mediation services for community members. One group organized a volleyball tournament just months after the peace agreement was signed in which representatives of both sides of the conflict – including their armies – participated.

Dialogue to Cooperative Action in Eastern Flatlands
SFCG has just launched a similar project in the troubled Eastern flatlands of Nepal. This initiative, being done with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, aims to bring youth together from different communities – Madhesis and Pahades – to strengthen inter-communal relationships and build peace.

Pathways to Peace

With support from the United States Department of State, SFCG has launched an initiative in coalition with three major youth-led organizations aimed at facilitating the participation of youth in the democratization process. The project partners are Youth Action Nepal, Youth Initiative, and the Association of Youth Organizations of Nepal. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of key youth leaders from throughout Nepal to engage in the democratization process by building their capacities in non-adversarial advocacy tools and creating channels of communication with the members of the constituent assembly.

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Search For Common Ground in Nepal
P.O. Box 24905
Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel: +977 (1) 553 5909
Fax: +977 (1) 553 0171
stripathee@sfcg.org