Infrastructure for Peace Means Getting Youth Involved and Participating

At its 5th edition this year, the Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace aimed to achieve the following:

1. Powerful inspiration, vision and hope for a peaceful world and the role of ministries and departments of peace in achieving it.
2. An understanding of Ubuntu philosophy as a guiding principle for a way of life in African communities and how it relates to peace.
3. Increased ability to develop a national movement for infrastructures for peace (I4Ps), as provided by a range of speakers in various   fields such as peace economics, justice issues and other related global actions, such as the Global Peace Building Strategy.
4. Clear understanding of the nature of a ministry or department of peace, its mandate within government and the range of possibilities for I4Ps within their local context.
5. A plan for the formalization of the structure and organization of the Global Alliance.
   Click here to view the final programme.

As in every edition, youth have been involved both in the organisation of the Summit and in its proceedings.  Alongside the summit, over 40 international youth from universities and youth organisations in Cape Town area joined on the 3rd day. Facilitation was also provided with the support of youth as a team of young peaceworkers of the Global Alliance, working together with the official facilitator for achieving the outcomes of the youth day. We talked about infrastructure for peace and its relevance to youth issues and further engaged youth in a peace cafe process to create meaningful conversations on what they've heard and experienced. In keeping with new methods of communications and social media we came up with a series of tweets for peace that may be seen in this picture.

Some of the feedback received from youth:

"It was truly a wonderful experience. Being educated on such a relevant topic was invaluable and, to have had the opportunity to engage and share in wisdom with so many interesting people was great, so thank you! I hope that the Global Alliance continues to encourage future youth involvement."

"I thought the summit was thought provoking and opened up a whole world of new possibilities for me."

"What an extraordinary experience, having to sit on the same table with people from multi generations and be heard on the same level. What an inspiration to make peace with myself and those around me, it has most definitely changed my thinking and inspired me to look at life from a different perspectives. It was a privilege being there."

"For me yesterday was phenomenal. I was inspired to start thinking about building peace infrastructures in our different communities. I met some very important people and I was honoured".

"It was an inspiring experience, and helped get rid of my ignorance, when working towards peace really is..cool!"

"I would like to thank everyone involved in the Global Alliance Peace Summit who made it possible for me, as well as my fellow UNASA members, to join you.  I feel so blessed to have been, even a small part, of such an amazing summit and I wish you only the best for the remainder of the week. I often hear of people, like yourselves, who dedicate their lives to bringing peace and love into the world. I am extremely grateful and honoured to have had the opportunity to meet you all and I will take the lessons I have learned from this experience in order to spread the message of peace to all."

IMPORTANT: The Board of the newly incorporated Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace consists of 4 youth out of 10 members. Children of the Earth is proud that one of the Board of Directors youth, Corina Simon, is also a part of the staff of the COE.

VISION FOR THE FUTURE: The 2013 Summit, if it should be accepted to take place in Switzerland, shall be fully organised by youth.