The 6th edition of the Peace Ambassadors The Gambia
(PAG’s) international youth summer school being held at the Gambia College in
Brikama will formally close today.
According to Abdou Boye, Programme Coordinator at PAG, the event has gone well successfully without any problem that would affect its objective.
The event is an annual event organised by PAG with the objective of engaging youths and people working with young people across the world in gainful activities and issues that directly or indirectly impact on their lives.
With the theme, ‘In the search of peace for Africa’, the event is also meant not only to provide an opportunity for participants to choose a career or improve their status, but to improve performance and instil new hopes in them.
This year’s edition has attracted one hundred and five participants from different organisations and institutions.
In her address to the participants at the start of the camp, Isatou Bittaye, PAG coordinator, said the goal of the summer school is to enhance political and cultural tolerance among people, thereby promote peaceful coexistence among them.
“It is evident that humanity has been facing the worst of times for the past decades; so many innocent people have lost their lives, properties destroyed and relationships shattered. Human beings have the ability to think positively in order to resolve our differences peacefully, but violence is always used as a means of resolving conflicts. The consequences of violence are numerous and always dangerous,” she said.
For his part, Lamin M. Sanyang, president of PAG said that as an organisation, they have over the years realised the need for the young people, to redirect and refocus efforts and actions towards the attainment of world peace.
He described peace as the world’s greatest challenge and that until collective efforts are put together, it will remain the biggest challenge to be ever faced by the world.
Sanyang noted that the younger generation should be taught peacemaking and building ideas that solve simple day-to-day conflicts in communities at tender age, so as to enable them change the world, since the future belongs to them.
“Educationists and peace advocacy organisations like PAG should continue to design peacemaking and peace-building curricula to be taught in lower level schools.
“This will enable young people to understand the purpose and concept of a peaceful co-existence at tender age, and will grow up knowing how to solve bigger conflicts, challenges and their differences without the necessity of being violent, which could sometimes confuse them when they become mature and learn to reason,” Sanyang remarked.