UNESCO Africa week is the annual flagship event of the Africa Group at UNESCO, a body that brings together the Member States of the African continent. Africa week includes a kaleidoscope of cultural, scientific, artistic, and epicurean events in honor of Africa Day (25 May), when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), today the African Union (AU), was founded in 1963.
On this occasion the UNESCO Campus program organized an online event with three inspirational women involved in peace-keeping activities in Africa. The debate was also enriched by the contributions of three schools who joined as panelists: the Ebedei secondary school at Ebedei Delta State, Nigeria, the Arakan Girls Secondary School at Lusaka, Zambia, and the Belbies Governmental Language School at Sharkia, Egypt.
Moreover, 10 schools connected from United Kingdom, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Greece, and France joined the session as attendees.
First panelist of the session was Loubna Benhayoune, who joined the in 2014. She is currently the Director of the Stabilization and Recovery Section, in Bamako, Mali.
She discussed the role of international organizations in peace building, sharing her experience in the the UN.
Peace is the most difficult thing we can obtain: war and destructions, with all the weapons we have today, are easy. Peace means reconstruction: of buildings but also of humans, of their bodies, and of their minds… it’s a challenge we need to work on.”
Sharing her experience, she wanted to show to the students how much small initiatives of peace can become relevant in the largest scale. The military effort alone is not enough to build peace, since peace is not only the absence of war: it’s a state of mind that can be reached only with the reconstruction of the economical, social and educational system.
We all have to believe that peace is possible. And to make it real we need to hold on to certain values: respect, empathy, solidarity, and inclusiveness.”
Talking about the importance of education, Khadija Mayman joined the discussion sharing her experience as a Conflict Resolution Trainer at the , which she joined when she was only 23 years old, as a Youth Peacemaker.
Khadija comes from Bonteheuwel which is one of the 14 areas where the initiative operates in the Cape Flats, in Cape Town, South Africa. Bonteheuwel is also one of the most violent communities of this region. Her goal is to continue to spread the message of peace and to bring transformative change to her own as well as other communities within the Cape Flats.
Her main task consist in assist and stabilize the communities. That can be done just letting people speak and share their experiences in a safe environment.
Being a Youth peacemaker means learn how to dialogue and how to let the others express themselves.
She underlined the key-importance of education: have conversation about peace and initiate projects that can make people feel safer is the foundation of peace building. It is only starting from these small acts of peace that we can make big changes.
The third and last speaker was Kongosi Mussanzi, co-founder of the . She spent ten years campaigning and advocating for peace. She co-founded the Centre Résolution Conflits (CRC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo but had to flee to the UK because of death threats. She is involved in conflict resolution, trauma counseling and reconciliation, with NGOs, churches and political leaders, students and women who suffer from traumas.
She wanted to put the accent on the importance of safety: people need to feel safe to live freely but also to talk about their experience. With the Centre Résolution Conflits she wanted to create a safe space when youth leaders can help facilitate reconciliation, the first step to peace building.
We need young people to create a global society when nobody is a victim, and each person gives and receives.
Then, she addressed directly to the young women assisting at the Campus to inspire them to engage in what they believe and share the message of peace and reconciliation.
Listening to the experiences of the three exceptional women was a real inspiration for the young people participating at the session.
The students learnt how everybody is responsible for peace. We all can make a difference starting with a small initiative. With small acts, we can make our world sparkling and inspire a new generation of peacekeepers.
