Young People Spearhead a Movement for Peace in the Pacific

Young People Spearhead a Movement for Peace in the Pacific

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday 12th May 2011,

Young people from Australia, the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu will congregate next month in New Zealand to build skills to create a more peaceful region.

The interactive ‘Wansolwara Youth Peace-building Conference’ (W.Y.P.C) will empower young people with peace-building and advocacy skills to take leadership and action on issues that cause conflict in their communities. Wansolwara is a pidgin word meaning ‘one ocean-one people’.

The peace-building initiative has been developed by young people who represented the region at the Nkabom Commonwealth Youth Leadership Programme in 2010 in Rwanda, Africa. The Nkabom Commonwealth Youth Leadership Programme is one of the Royal Commonwealth Society’s flagship youth projects. Nkabom (pronounced ink-a-bom) means ‘coming together’ in parts of Ghana, and develops a youth-led network of young leaders who pioneer peace building initiatives in their communities, countries and beyond.

Pacific Nkabom Youth Steering Committee member Ms Katrina Ma'u of Tonga says “this conference will provide training for young people so that they are equipped with the tools to formulate action plans around issues of conflict most relevant to their countries.”

“This conference is important because young people are not given sufficient opportunities to build peace and harmony in their societies both for their own generation and the wider society due to a lack of capacity, political voice, and access to resources. This conference helps to address that,” says Ms Ma’u.

Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) Pacific Centre Programme Manager Paul Peteru says “CYP believes in supporting young people to develop their potential, skills and abilities, including taking leadership in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peace-building efforts.”

The conference specially aims to:

• Address the themes of leadership and conflict resolution using examples in the Pacific region as case studies

• Engage, educate and embed key themes and theories which will give young people the confidence to take action and enable them to assist their governments and stakeholders to devise best practices, processes and mechanisms for peace in the Pacific region.

• Enable cultural exchange between participants and engage young people in key topics affecting their countries.

• Foster the creative generation of thematically targeted projects aimed at increasing youth involvement and participation in the wider community, based on the experience of a broad cross-section of Pacific young people.

• Train young people in youth leadership, negotiation and advocacy skills, within a Pacific context.

Conference details:
Wansolwara Youth Peace-Building Conference: One ocean – One people
When: 20th – 23rd of June, 2011
Where: Auckland, New Zealand

The conference is supported by the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

ENDS

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