PAIMAN Alumni Trust organized a National Peace Convention

Lahore: PAIMAN Alumni Trust organized a National Peace Convention on Community Waging Peace; piece by piece here at Serena Hotel, Islamabad.

The Convention was attended by parliamentarians, representatives of INGO’s, media personnel, officials of various government departments and PAIMANs TOLANA members from various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Agencies of FATA.

The convention was held to celebrate the efforts of PAIMANs TOLANA members for their unprecedented work of addressing the menace of extremism through community awareness, networking and capacity building of youth and mothers.

On this occasion PAIMANs TOLANA also shared their experiences and best practices of the work they had conducted in the field regarding social cohesion and harmony using indigenous ways of dialogue and mediation that they have learned during their training at PAIMAN.

On this occasion  Shafqat Mehmood, Chairman PAIMAN said that PAIMAN has started a non violent movement to counter violent extremism through our TOLANA members across KP and FATA. Our biggest achievement remains a network of active peace practitioners called TOLANA across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA who now are skilful enough to build social cohesion by engaging youth, communities and local leaders through participatory and community based approaches.’

Another panelist,home secretary  Khyber pakhtunkhwa Akhtar Ali Shah stressed on the importance of collaboration between civil society and the government for addressing violent extremism effectively.

MNA  Shaista Parvez Malik highlighted the need for understanding the role that youth and women can play in building peaceful societies.paiman  executive director mossarat qadeem also speak

Under its EU funded project, ‘Communities waging peace; piece by piece’, PAIMAN built the capacity of 400 educated youth, 156 NGO/CBO members, 316 mothers and 24 mentors on various aspects of community peace building, advocacy and networking. It has also helped to transform 400 vulnerable youth and rehabilitated then in their communities. Through this project PAIMAN has sensitized 18000 people through community sessions across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

PAIMAN Alumni Trust under its ‘Lets live in Peace’ program has been working across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA since 2008 to create social cohesion through community outreach, capacity building and advocacy.