National
Council of Churches in India – Commission on Youth
In
Partnership with
India
Peace Centre
Youth
Empowerment for Peace
Peace
Education Training
November
11-13, 2015, Panjim, Goa
A Peace Education Training for the youth
under the theme “Youth Empowerment for Peace” was organized by NCCI-Commission
on Youth, in partnership with India Peace Centre at Caritas Holiday Home,
Panjim, Goa from 11th to 13th November 2015. A group of 36 youth participated in the
program from various parts of India.
The
training program was commenced with an inaugural session by Mr. Kasta Dip,
Director, India Peace Centre on ‘Perspectives of Peace and Understanding
Context’ in which he explained the present scenario of peace in our country. He
pointed out the different contexts of intolerance, contexts of bans, majority
views versus minority views, plurality versus homogeneity, contexts where
social discriminations are rampant all over, hatred, violence and rape, child
labor, exclusion of some people in the society such as dalits, tribals etc.
Rev. Solomon Paul, Youth Director, CSI Synod headed
the session on ‘Youth Dealing with Conflicts’ in understanding and analyzing
the conflicts and addressing the issue accordingly. He said how preventing
violent conflict is imperative for development. Conflict is one of the most
complex issues the global community is facing today and its impact is apparent
in every part of the world. Preventive measures have become an essential
component of efforts to ensure a brighter future. Enabling youth to make major
positive contributions is one way to minimize or neutralize factors that contribute
to violence, increase global security, and prevent further armed conflict. Rev.
Paul explicitly urged the youth that the issue should be analytically addressed
from different perspectives in any conflicts.
Mr.
Kasta Dip addressed the session on ‘Knitting Neighborhood’ in understanding of
concept of neighborhood as mentioned in Mark 12:30-31. Our love of ourselves is
not a frigid love, but a sincere and ardent love. In like manner we should love
our neighbor and desire for him all those good things both for the body and for
the soul that we desire for ourselves. This is what our Lord himself teaches us
in Mark 12:30-31. Mr. Dip elaborately identified various notions of neighbors
that are to be considered in order to identify and highlight the real meaning
of neighbor in a diverse contemporary society.
A session on Symbiotic Living was
led by Mr. Michael Angelious, Youth Coordinator, JELC divulging the experience
of living in harmony with the nature and its Eco-concerns for better society.
He emphasized how nature sustains our life and therefore, there has to be a
harmonious relationship between human beings, the animal world and also plants
because we complement each other and depend on each other for our survival. He
went on to say that as good stewards of the earth, we should take care of our
nature and work towards its conservation. This symbiotic living is not just an
ethical responsibility, but also a spiritual responsibility. Whether it is
deliberate or out of ignorance, we are destroying the ecological balance of the
earth landing ourselves and our future generations in serious danger. Human
beings alone are responsible for global warming and the climate changes because
we have not understood symbiotic living. Therefore empowering and educating the
youth on the importance of nature conservation is very important. The prime
focus of the session inculcating measures to help the youth understand and resolve
to work towards establishing an ecologically sound society.
Various activity oriented sessions were
steered in understanding the concept of peace and how initiating peace in a
conflict-torn society would help. The program was concluded with an ‘Action Plan’
session led by Mr. Kasta Dip in which each church and organization
representatives came up with different programs and action plan to be taken up
in the near future on various issues and concerns.
