New York, 8 June 2022 – The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) announced the launch of the fifth edition of its Young Peacebuilders programme, focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), with the support of AEXCID (Agencia Extremeña de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo). After a competitive selection process, UNAOC selected 18 young women and men between the ages of 18 to 25 and coming from Argentina, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The UNAOC Young Peacebuilders is a peace education initiative that aims to grow the global movement of young peacebuilders by strengthening their competencies to address negative stereotypes, prejudice, and polarization while bringing visibility to their actions and projects toward the promotion of diversity and intercultural and interfaith dialogue.
The programme consists of four phases that facilitate a progressive and experience-based learning process for participants: (1) an online preparatory phase where participants collaborate virtually, (2) face-to-face workshops where participants travel to undergo intensive peacebuilding training, (3) mentoring through the implementation of each participant’s peace initiative as they apply their learnings, and (4) a final culminating symposium during which the Young Peacebuilders will present their work to relevant stakeholders.
The skills and experience that the young civil society leaders acquire through the Young Peacebuilders programme will help them and their organizations implement more successful projects. In parallel, the programme is also designed to raise awareness among decision-makers that youth should be included in peacebuilding processes and policies, in line with the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolutions 2250, 2419 and 2535 on Youth, Peace and Security, and the UN Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.
Previous iterations of the programme focused on West Africa (first edition) and the Middle East and North Africa region (second to fourth editions). For more information about this peace education initiative, please click here.