World Peace Initiative Foundation has been awarded the “SEED Funding for Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation” as part of our emerging work in Africa. The SEED Funding is a joint Management Agreement between the European Commission, EuropeAid Co-operation Office and the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe.

 

In July 2012, as the African Youth coordinator, Peace Agent Aya Chebbi participated in the 4th African University on Youth and Development in Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, organized by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe. The university gathered around 150 young people from Europe and Africa to discuss global youth policies, rights, work and challenges and to strengthen youth networks, information sharing and cooperation. Indeed, Aya represented Peace Revolution Project and networked for future cooperation and partnerships among the organizations represented.

 

This networking at the university resulted successfully in organizing a PIPO mission in Kenya, where Rose Wachuka, whom Aya met at the university in Cape Verde where she represented Global Young Greens, has tremendously helped organize the event in Nairobi in coordination with our Peace Agents in Kenya.

 

Recently, the North-South Centre opened applications for 2013 SEED Funding and we won the Award among applications from around the world. Due to our growing network in Kenya and our belief in African youth role in peace-building, we called our winning project “Africa Inspire”, which will take place also in Kenya. The project is a documentary that aims at promoting peace across Africa by giving visibility to peace restoration in Kenya’s Post elections. Taking the example of Kenya, the documentary will be the inspiration to other African countries and Europe to stress the role of youth in the quest of peace regardless of political and tribal clashes. The documentary is also the understanding of peace in Africa based on true stories that mainstream media doesn’t feature such as the slums of Kibera. The main objective of the project is to campaign for peace by raising awareness the role of African youth in peacemaking, empowering youth in Africa and Europe by giving them the voice to show their work, tell their stories and express their aspirations and eventually inspiring youth across Africa and Europe to follow Kenya’s youth model.

Peace Agent Aya will be travelling to Kenya in two months to conduct interviews and collect footage and stories for the documentary that will be released in September.