Mediothek Afghanistan in Kunduz organized a one-day dialogue forum on youth and peace with more than 60 participants including head of the regional office of the Human Rights Commission in the Northeast provinces, head of the provincial youth affairs department, heads of civil society organizations, representatives of economics and women’s affairs departments, representatives of youth of in Kunduz city and neighboring districts, peace activists, artists, students and active youth participated in the event.
In a one-day dialogue participating young men and women shared their views on the Afghan peace process and highlighted the role of young people in the process.
At the opening of the event, Inayatullah Khaliq, Mediothek Afghanistan coordinator in Kunduz and head of the Kunduz Civil Society Network, talked about the activities of Mediothek Afghanistan, in particular its programs on strengthening the foundations of peace in Afghanistan and promoting youth engagement in peacebuilding.
Khaliq said that Mediothek has been working in Afghanistan for more than two and half decade and has been operating in Kunduz province for about 18 years, and among other activities, an important part of the organization’s programs has been to strengthen the roots of peace by engaging youth in peacebuilding and empowering them to take active role in such matters.
Khaliq added “publishing books on peace journalism in Afghanistan for the first time, publishing books on peace and war journalism, organizing workshops (from basic to advanced) on peace journalism, establishing a network of peace journalists, launching a program of young peace ambassadors between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Iran, organizing regional peace festivals, conferences, discourses and training workshops on mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, training Afghan media to promote the idea and culture of peace are some of the activities of the Mediothek Afghanistan focusing on advancing peacebuilding in the country.
Khaliq added that Mediothek Afghanistan is committed to mobilizing and supporting various segments of society, especially civil society, the media and the youth to work and unite for peacebuilding and youth capacity building.
Khodabakhsh Moradi, director of the provincial department of youth affairs, said that the cohesion and participation of the youth in the Afghan peace process is very crucial and called on youth to take a more active role. “If today’s youth do not mobilize and don’t fulfill their responsibility before their country, history will call this generation a failed generation, and the youth should not accept that they are a failed generation,” added Mr. Moradi,
Mohammad Nawab Rahimi, representative of the Kunduz Department of Economy, praised the organizer for organizing such a program, saying that if young people join hands and unite to participate in the peace process, they will become a major force in the process, stressing “developed countries are built by their own people, especially their young generation. It has never been the case that a neighbor comes to build a neighbor’s house, and we should not expect others to bring peace and reconstruction to our country.”
Speaking on half of the provincial women affairs department, Bibi Sharifi, a representative of the Kunduz Department of Women’s Affairs, called for a national awakening, especially among youth, to play a more robust and active role in strengthening the roots of peace at local and community levels.
Ms. Sharifi called on all institutions for a just and organized struggle to raise public awareness. She called on opposition groups, especially the Taliban, to renounce violence and accept the peace that Afghans are asking from for a long time. “The Taliban should know that in this war they are only killing their Muslim fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters, and they must end the war that is raging only between our common homes,” Sharifi added.
The young participants emphasized strengthening the roots of social peace, saying that we should start working for peace from within our villages and homes, because the roots of peace are here, not in Qatar. They stressed that ethnic, religious, sectarian and regional conflicts must be turned into understandings, and that is when the foundations of political peace in Doha, Qatar, will be strengthened, and this will require serious and coherent youth work and today’ dialogue is proving a suitable stage for your to work together and share views.
The dialogue continued with expert speeches by two peace experts. In this section, Mohammad Saber Yousefi, head of the Afghanistan Civil Society Forum Organization and a human rights defender in Kunduz, said that in the last twenty years, the presence and role of young people in various aspect of life and work is in a better position than before, but still their role and participation in politics have not been achieved and more needs to be done in this regard and such events are very crucial for achieving this aim.
On the other hand, Seyyed Hafizullah Fitrat, including head of the regional office of the Human Rights Commission in the Northeast provinces, said that the achieving justice and human rights is impossible without peace. Mr. Fitrat, while emphasizing the importance of this dialogue forum, called on the youth to take seriously the issue of participation in the peace process. He encouraged the participating youth to care active part in peacebuilding in their communities.
In the second part of this dialogue forum, the more than fifty young participant had ample opportunity to express their views in detail in several working groups moderated by an experts, engage in open discussion, and fill in questionnaires for future reference. They strongly expressed their opposition to the continuation of the wars in the country and their participation in the peace process.
The provincial dialogue forum is part of the project “Youth as Multipliers for Peace – Mobilization for and Participation in the Peace Process in Afghan Provinces”, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
