Young People have been encouraged to take up roles and drive the process of building and sustaining safer and peaceful communities as their collective responsibility.

This was the message at the June edition of the monthly youth gathering tagged “Gaskiya (Truth) Platform”, hosted by BEGE Foundation in collaboration with Global Peace and Rescue Initiative (GOPRI) held at Apurimac Vocational Training Centre within the premises of St. Monica’s Catholic Church, State Lowcost Jos.

The gathering was engaging, interactive, and fascinating with actionable points on ways young people can contribute to building peaceful and safer communities.
Mr Godwin Okoko, The Director of Programs PPBA, drove the process of discussion on the role of Young people for young people in building improved viable, secured, peaceful, just and cohesive communities. He encouraged youths present to talk about issues and assured further action on points raised.

Simon Asemoh a guest discussant, in his opening comments, highlighted that young people must begin to see themselves as part of the conversation and not miss out, thereby building themselves as models to creating safer communities

He noted that youths have been the most involved in criminal activities and are the most affected given the continuous rise of insecurity, as such the need for action from youths. He said “Youth must inject new and positive conversation” “Youth must be perceived as change agents”

“Youths must be strategically engaged in decision making being that they make up about 65 percent of the population in Nigeria,” He said.

Barr Julian shan, another guest discussant, went on to talk about how young people have suffered due to failed family values and how they need to start distinguishing between right and wrong despite the prevalent peer pressure that is abundant within communities.

She said young people must wake up to the reality that struggling to make a positive impact pays in the long run as such criminal activities will only lead to further destabilize harmonious communities.

Bello Lukman, renowned OAP with Unity FM, was another guest discussant at the gathering. The OAP noted that the security situation in Nigeria is precarious with young people being actively involved, both as perpetrators or victims.

Lukman noted that the security situation in Nigeria is shorthanded given that the police population with a little over 300,000 is saddled with the responsibility of attending to the over 200million Nigerians which does not come close to the required standard.

He also noted that the security situation in the country has further deteriorated given the economic challenges being experienced in the country as huger comes with a lot of crime.

He called on youths to wake up and begin to lead in decisions that affect them and in any case decide on the kind of leaders they install as the only way they could guarantee a change in the future.

There were further responses from security outfits (Operation Safe Haven and Civil Defense) who were all represented at the youth gathering as they admonished youths to more security conscious.

BEGE FOUNDATION is working to strengthening UNSCR 2250; A United Nations mandate to carry out a Progress Study on young people’s positive contribution to peace processes and conflict resolution, in order to recommend effective responses at local, national, regional, and international levels. which was unanimously adopted on 9 December 2015, a ground-breaking resolution on Youth, Peace and Security which recognizes that “young people play an important and positive role in the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security”.