Never Again Rwanda, Sunday hosted the 7th edition of the local public speaking & exchange in Huye District. The activity that was supported by GIZ Rwanda convened 105 participants, to include; secondary school students, teachers, and District officials among other partners. The youth participants highlighted the issues hindering peace in their schools, families, and communities through their varied performances (songs, sketches, speeches and poems).
The Public Speaking and Exchange aims to; provide youth with spaces to discuss issues hindering peace and suggest potential solutions, provide youth and teachers with critical thinking skills and apply them in their daily lives, develop empathy and reduce negative stereotypes as well as to empower youth to raise their voices in private and public forums. Each team wrote a speech and prepared a piece of art (song, sketch, and poem) under the theme: “Peace starts with me! How can I use my creativity to tackle the issues hindering Peace in our families, schools, and communities?”
In his welcoming remarks, the Head of Programs at Never Again Rwanda, Eric Mahoro, reiterated the fact that various channels have been frequently used in the past to manipulate youth to become actors in violent conflicts thus lauded dialogue spaces as a channel that can provide possible solutions against negative ideologies.
The Advisor of the Executive Committee at Huye district, Kagabo Joseph, urged youth to build peace in their respective schools and communities because it is everyone’s responsibility to champion for it, noting that “People who need peace are more than those who give it, so youth ought to cultivate a culture of building and giving peace in the country, and the benefits will be impeccable”.
As it was an open space, youth demonstrated issues that hinder peace in schools such as religion-based conflicts, interpersonal conflicts & financially related battles and some of the different solutions suggested included; creating platforms to discuss those issues, advancing their talents to tackle those issues, using the individual and collective efforts to face the real problems with creativity and creating respect of diversity within students from different backgrounds.
Shingiro Pacifique 18 year old, a student at Mgr Felicien Mubigi TVET, said that peace starts within and it spreads to relationships within the society but believes that using social media and creating different spaces and groups to share stories might be a possible solution, while Umwali Rosine from Ecole Notre Dame de la Providence Karubanda called for everyone to strive to live without conflicts with a sense of kindness. “We must bear in mind that it is our responsibility to bring peace wherever we are while avoiding interpersonal conflicts, financial conflicts and also participating in charity work” Rosine said.
Imvano z’Amahoro &Imbuto z’amahoro emerged the two winners of the public speaking and exchange in 2018 and they will chose two students amongst the two teams to represent them in the regional event scheduled for August 2018. All students who participated in the public speaking and exchange received symbolic prizes and certificates, to serve as a token of appreciation and a reminder of spreading what they have learned.
The Public speaking and exchange project is implemented in partnership with Ejo Youth Echo (Rwanda), Never Again Rwanda (Rwanda), Vision Jeunesse Nouvelle (Rwanda), Life Concern (Uganda), Club des Jeunes pour la Vie (DRC), SOJPAE (Burundi), supported by the civil peace service (CPS/ZFD).