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An article by Juan Valderrama from the Global Campaign for Peace Education
As Election Day arrives, Colombian youth are still demanding answers to the many questions that arise with every event that still comes out to the public sphere. There are at least 3 common topics that articulate the agenda of all candidates in terms of presidential discourses, which brings encountered feelings among Colombian Youth.
That being said, the order of those agendas will most definitely determine the completion of the peace agreement, the cooperation set of rules with the international community, the migration crisis shared with Venezuela, and yet the successful adoption of a culture of peace among all citizens.
Organizers and participants from Fundacion Escuelas de Paz, IPB, and UNOY. (Photo: Fundacion Escuelas de Paz)
Colombia´s youth have already started paving the way, and there are tiny positive steps that continue to pave a way out of the old conflictive situations.
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What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?
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One of those tiny steps took place the past 25 of April in Medellin, Colombia.
With participants from Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, The International Youth Congress for Peace gathered around 110 Youth leaders from all political perspectives.
The lead of Fundacion Escuelas de Paz, UNOY and International Peace Bureau Youth, played a crucial role after dialoguing over 4 key areas of common concern: Human Rights, Education and Communication for Peace, Participation in Public Policy, and UNCSR 2250.
All the dialogues held constituted a document, a set of 13th proposals addressed to the Colombian Presidential Candidates, with the hopes to be adopted by the new National Development Agenda (2018-2022).
But more importantly, an opportunity to launch a Youth4Peace Latin Network to support, share, learn and earn knowledge form our own perspectives as responsible citizens for the positive change of today’s glocal world.
The network is continuously and systematically expanding, as most of the leaders consider sharing to be the key aspect to straighten capacity building and resilience in our home countries.
The next step in this process will be the Conference ¨Hablemos de Paz” to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina on July 3-6.
We encourage of all interested youth groups and leaders to participate in the following steps to build the network, straighten existing channels and continue engaged with us on the road to the Summit of Berlin 2019.