CYP Asia Centre set to develop Training Manual

Following the mandate of the Commonwealth Youth Ministers in their meeting in Colombo in April 2008, the CYP Asia Centre was the first to organize a capacity building workshop for young people, including RYC members, and youth functionaries in governments on the theme of young people’s engagement in peace building.

This was followed by commissioning of a situational analysis report involving five Commonwealth Asian countries which are prone to and beset by conflicts of various kinds.

The report not only analyzed conflict situations obtaining in the five countries, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka but also viewed the climate insofar as young people’s engagement in conflict/peace building was concerned. It also made country specific recommendations to deepen the involvement of youth in conflict resolution/management and in strengthening peace in these countries. The report was formally launched by DSG, Masire-Mwamba during her last visit to the Centre.

Based on the findings of the report, an expert group consultation was organized jointly by the CYP Asia Centre and the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD) from June 21-23 in the latter’s campus in which more than a dozen experts and youth activists took part.

The experts were drawn from all the five countries under the situational study and were either eminent scholars from the academia or expert trainers. The consultation was inaugurated by the Director of the RGNIYD and was attended from the CYP Asia Centre by Stanzin Dawa, Program Manager and Kamal Aswal, Program Secretary.

After three days of intensive consultation, a framework for a training manual has been developed. CYP Asia Centre would now undertake to get the training manual drafted and field-tested after which a cadre of youth ambassadors for peace would be trained as master trainers who intern would train their peers in the Commonwealth Asia region.