Rwenzori Youth for Peace Summit & Leadership Awards 2018

EVENT THEME: SOWING SEEDS OF PEACE AND COEXISTENCE

EVENT DESCRIPTION

In 2018, the Great lakes Peace Center hosted the Rwenzori Youth for Peace Summit and Leadership Awards from June 6th to June 8th in Kasese, Uganda. The goal of the Summit was to empower, mentor, and nurture young people with new approaches to dealing with socio-economic challenges that distract the youth from the realization of positive peace in their communities. The Summit offered a series of workshops, the group facilitated activities and high-profile speakers who educated and mentored the participants on positive peace and social development. The summit was organized in order to maximize interactions, networking, and free debates and discussions among its participants.

OBJECTIVES OF THE SUMMIT

Objective 1: To encourage youth voices and innovative ideas as a means of sustaining our Path to achieving Visions; 2030, 2063, and 2040 for Global, Africa, and Uganda respectively.
Objective 2: To create an interface between policy/decision-makers and the young men and women from the Rwenzori region and beyond to draw actions compelling the government to prioritize peacebuilding in the region.
Objective 3: Awarding people and institutions for their distinguished role in supporting peacebuilding and youth empowerment in the Rwenzori Region as a means of motivating young people to work harder in their daily life.

The Summit was officially opened by keynote addresses from His Worship the Mayor of Kasese Municipality and Professor Ogenga Latigo. The Mayor commended the efforts of GLPC to involve young people in building positive social change. He also thanked them for organizing the summit and bringing together various stakeholders in building peace. He reiterated that conflict is manmade and therefore the solutions to conflict can only come from people. He said that he has been involved in the process of building society since the days of his youth and believes that youth can use their youthful energy to cause lasting peace.

Professor Latigo commended the young people at GLPC for organizing such a historic summit. He reiterated that conflict is a hindrance to all forms of socioeconomic transformation and challenged the entire stakeholders in attendance to synergize to end the decades-old conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and in the Rwenzori sub-region of Kasese, in particular,watch the Keynote address by Professor Ogenga and Keynote address by Professor Lumumba from Tanzania.

The conference promoted a deeper understanding of behaving with tolerance, friendly coexistence of different religions, races, and nations in the same community, respecting each other in the family, workplace, society, school and etc. During the conference, Peace Lovers exchanged ideas with guest speakers and learn how to contribute to international peace. One of the main aims of the conference was to develop consciousness about what should actually be done to achieve peace in the Rwenzori Region and real-world at large as opposed to the general picture of an ideal world.

The Awards ceremony was moderated by Mr. Faruku Kibaba, the Executive Director, Great Lakes Peace Center. The Awards were given to
Mr. Nelson Guma, Climate Action Champion, Dr. Walemba Mumbere, for involving Youth in Peacebuilding work. Professor PLO Lumumba, as Pan African Youth Mentor
The Rotary Club of Kasese for sponsoring peace programs for youth. The US Embassy Department of Culture Affairs for Peacebuilding efforts through Youth Projects in the Rwenzori region.
Mr. Luke Addison for having been the first to sign up for the summit in January and traveling the longest distance to present.