One of Never Again Rwanda’s main goals, as largely expressed by its Societal Healing and Participatory Governance for Peace Program, is to promote involvement in governance, the solving of conflict through dialogue and discussions of past trauma amongst youth. This is done through, for example, engagement with schools as well as youth groups and associations which will, in turn, become involved in a series of capacity-building projects. Oftentimes, NAR will attempt to engage youth on an artistic or cultural level through arts-oriented events aimed at reaching the Rwandan youth and, in March 2018, such an event was launched.
This year, Never Again Rwanda, through its Societal Healing Program, launched its first ever Youth Arts Competition, which aims to engage the youth in capacity-building initiatives that involve such values as critical thinking, mediation and the promotion of platforms for youth interaction through, for example, inter-parliamentary youth discussions, public speaking in schools and Youth Associations. The Youth Arts Competition 2018 aims at encouraging the youth to express their ideas and their perspectives on peace-building through their talents, while also aiming to foster peace-building among the youth within their communities. The competition targets individuals or youth groups (clubs) operating in NAR’s districts of intervention and applications from numerous other districts were received, including; Huye, Gisagara, Nyamagabe, Nyaruguru, Rubavu, Ngororero, Musanze, Nyagatare, Kayonza, Rwamagana, Gicumbi, Gasabo, Kicukiro, Bugesera and Nyarugenge.
The Youth Arts Competition, which is organized under the theme “Youth Building Peace: The role of youth in building a peaceful community”, will task youth to show through their various talents in the arts (i.e. drama, songs, poems and drawings) how they can champion for peace. The aim of the competition is to: give youth the opportunity to create and organize their own art in a way that would positively impact their community; create a safe space for the youth to express themselves; and emphasize the talents and skills of youth from different backgrounds in the service of peace and the larger community.
The Youth Arts Competition was launched on 24th March 2018 at the NAR office in Huye with a regional competition, which brought together 18 young people, showcasing a wide range of artistic products from drawings to songs to pieces of poetry. Those who participated were from the Huye, Gisagara and Nyamagabe districts.
From the performances, it was noted that some of the issues hindering peace included land conflicts, genocide ideology, extreme poverty, identities, drug abuse, early unwanted pregnancies and destructive messages from parents, to name but a few. During the competition, the youth also devised different strategies for building peace in their communities such as; the creation of more peace clubs in schools and communities in order to foster a culture of human rights & tolerance; the mobilization of both the adults and the youth in their role of fight destructive ideologies; the teaching of the younger generation about peaceful values; the use of artistic pieces to fight against corruption and social injustices; and the discussing of Rwanda’s history with parents in order for them to understand their roles in preventing the re-occurrence of genocide and future violence.
This competition is an ongoing process, to be held in other provinces such as the East, North, West and Kigali provinces, and then later the national level competitions will be held in June 2018, at which the best individuals will represent Rwanda in the regional competitions.