Project description
What issue(s) are you trying to solve?
Basing upon our organization’s mandate, the Young Peace Ambassadors Program aims to promote active youth participation in solving past and current conflicts, as well as their contribution towards avoiding the recurrence of conflicts in the future. Understanding the power that lies in youth, we encourage peer to peer learning, critical thinking as well as active community engagement by the youth- for the youth. We are building a strong team of knowledgeable, confident and skilled young peacemakers who are devoted to challenging some traditional, political and social peacebuilding methods which have failed to yield anticipated results in Zimbabwe. Through our program, youth are well trained and capacitated in decision-making processes as well as demanding for transparency and accountability from community, church, traditional, school and government leaders.
What is your approach to change this undesired situation?
Through Young Peace Ambassadors Program, our approach focuses on creating youth peacebuilders who become role models within their communities. As role models, they then motivate other fellow youth to become agents of peace. They also encourage fellow youth to join community service programs which help to keep the environment clean and youth-friendly.
The uniqueness of our approach is mainly on its avoidance of using prescriptive methods in building youth peacebuilders. Rather, the program encourages maximum participants’ contribution in identifying problems as well as finding solutions to these problems.
What is the potential impact of your initiative?
With enough support, the Young Peace Ambassadors Program has the potential to become a regional program which will benefit youth in the Sub- Saharan Africa region. Its open centred approach is essential in enabling youth in the region to critically think about how best can various conflicts be solved. It also allows youth to lead in the development and implementation of solutions to African problems. Our vision is to create an online Digital Center which allows youth to benefit from this program regardless of their geographical location. The centre will utilize other easy to use communication channels such as text messages which allow even youth without internet access to be active participants of the program.
