Support Youth to build Peace in Nigeria

The 8th International Conference on Youth and Interfaith Dialogue is scheduled to hold from November 23-24, 2018in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, under the theme: "The Role of Religions to Promote Peace, Security and Transcend Violent Extremism”. The conference will make a critical appraisal of the role of religion in security issues and suggest practical ways religions can help in resolving security problems as well create and promote an inclusive, compassionate community dialogue process that honours different personal experiences, perspectives, and narratives, while allowing for better expressing and listening to each other as we work together toward understanding and harmony. 

Conference participants will include Community leaders and activists, NGO  representatives, Political leaders, Religious/Spiritual leaders, Peace activists, Government representatives, Students, Cultural/Ethnic and Spiritual Community representatives, Human Service providers, Academics, Social Science researchers, Key participants from current or recent regions of turmoil in Nigeria, Visionaries and front-line thinkers in social-political principles, psycho-social-spiritual dynamics, and human consciousness and members of the interested public from Nigeria and around the world.

Specifically, the 8th International Interfaith Youth Conference seeks to:

• Examine dimensions and dynamics of "The OTHER" on individual and group levels, and consider how enemy identity is formed, perpetuated, and manipulated.

• Identify and compile fundamental questions, dilemmas, and implications for further deep inquiry and examination in an expanding public dialogue, and to challenge embedded negative belief systems that promote adversarial perceptions of the "The Other."

• Create an open platform for meaningful citizen engagement in the public peace process and to invite in a public dialogue that brings our joint wisdom to bear in exploring sometimes difficult issues that affect us all. This is based on the premise that it does not require that we be the same to be appreciative of, at peace with, and secure in our relationships with each other; only that we be familiar enough with each other’s story to share the humanity and trustworthiness that resides in each of us. We will ask all conference participants to assist by carrying and expressing this intent throughout the conference and beyond. 

• Tap our shared wisdom, compassion, and responsibility as a community - from the local to the global - in developing practical applications. Participants are encouraged to develop and share practical recommendations and strategies for applying results to the current state of local and world relationships to promote increased understanding, sensitivity, and compassion as a means of countering and neutralizing hostility, particularly inter-group hostility.

• To share good practices and to discuss ways and means to reproduce them in other mechanisms/regions and/or areas of cooperation, including by identifying the challenges related to the replication of these practices in other mechanisms and/or areas of cooperation.

• Formulate findings and products to make available to all - through publications, media, the Internet, educational curriculum, networks, community based dialogue groups, etc.

• Create Networking Opportunities to promote collaboration, action planning, and next steps following the conference.