Children and Young
People Living for Peace (CYPLP) is a youth-focused, not for profit, voluntary
movement in Nigeria. We work with the other youths, informal and formal youth
groups and through youth groups in local disadvantaged communities. We defend
and protect the rights of the vulnerable, provide water, toilets and
hygiene in slums. This enables social justice to the most adversely affected by
poverty. Youth are also empowered as active citizens whose individual and
collective actions address challenges in their local communities and start the
process of positive change.
CYPLP seeks to present
veritable platforms of engagement for youth and by youth in hard to reach local
communities in Nigeria and across Africa.
To situate some of the
work that Children and Young People Living for Peace does and its impact in the
community here is a specific example. In 2011, there was a violent crisis
that erupted after the presidential election which later turned into an
ethno-religious crisis. Many lives were lost and property destroyed. Building
on the past experience, before the 2015 Presidential election, we began to
organize focus group discussions with youth in violence prone areas to know
what could easily drive them into violence during election. From the result of
the focus group discussions, we began to build social programs like football competitions
between confli cting communities
to
build familiarization and teach tolerance through sport. We started awareness
programs through the use of stickers and flyers to promote youth against
election violence including road walks and media interviews. Youth groups were
invited for peace stakeholders meeting where peace accords were signed.
And within those communities we worked through for the campaign, those
communities did not record election violence before, during and after the
presidential election in 2015 unlike the previous. We learnt a lesson from it;
that youth engagement should be a continuum if we want a peaceful world.
Like most community
engagement work, this one has its own challenges as well. When we first started
the engagement with youths, they demanded money to get their attention; money
that we did not have. We resulted in using the volunteers who are local in
these communities as a link and a means of recruiting more volunteers.
These volunteers were instrumental in penetrating target groups. The local
volunteers were involved from conception to development and implementation of
all the programs we carried out for wider acceptability.
The Future is now-
We have drawn our planned campaign for 2018. And our campaigns/projects for the year are -
1. Connecting Girls/Women Initiative (for internet startups/ digital jobs, online entrepreneurship)
2. Tax Education at Schools
3. Road Safety Awareness for Young People
4. Youths and Women Community Politics
5. Agric Value Chain for youths
And should you have any need for inquiry about any of our program projects for the year 2018, please do feel free to send us an email on - youngpeopleforpeace@gmail.com
Or visit - www.cyplp.net.ng
Get to know us better this year as we desire knowing you too. Let's play a simple part to better our world together.
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