The Hill Country communities are known to be highly diverse and multicultural. However, the communities are reported to be facing numerous social, economic, and cultural challenges, which has led to tensions, disharmony, discrimination, and lack of social cohesion and unity. It is highly necessary for the communities to be united and have greater understanding to overcome these challenges. More than ever, the recent economic crisis has indicated the greater need for unity and peace among communities.
Our goal at The Road to Rights (R2R) is to empower youth by educating them about their rights as a set of responsibilities and enhancing their skills to inspire others and lead community actions. By creating a platform, we aim to foster a sustained movement towards creating a united, just and safer society and culture.
Therefore, we initiated the “The Hill Country Peace Pioneers” project which is aimed to train 50 youth leaders in the Hill Country Region of Sri Lanka namely Kandy, Matale and Nuwara Eliya districts to take action within their own communities, focusing on peace, human rights and social cohesion. This project will empower youth by educating them about their rights, not simply as something to merely enjoy individually but also as something that they feel responsible towards protecting. The initiative will also improve their skills to inspire others and to lead community actions. The long-term aim would be to create a united, fairer and safer society, in which all the communities would feel included.
- Built 50 youth Peace Pioneers on human rights, peace, democracy, and reconciliation.
- Implemented 100 community actions during an educational tour to create awareness within their communities.
- Established 50 Peace Clubs in schools to promote a culture of peace and understanding among students.
- Fostered strategic partnerships with the initiative in order to strengthen a sustainable platform for youth to lead the peace, and human rights dialogue.
- Held intergenerational dialogue and recognized the impact of the initiative.
Expected Outcomes
Our Key Activities
1. Two-day residential training program
A 2 day residential training program will be held in order to enhance our 50 peace pioneers' knowledge and capacity on peace, human rights and social cohesion. The residential training is planned to be held under the expertise of experienced facilitators and trainers in the respective field. The training program will also contain a planning session for the pioneers on their future community actions followed by a workshop on storytelling. It will be an acceleration for them to make more impactful actions as changemakers for peace.
2. Educational Tour
The 50 Champions will conduct activities in their respective communities to achieve peace and social cohesion. Each individual will make a minimum of two actions in their respective division. Our motive is to achieve 100 actions by the end of the educational tour followed by establishing Peace Clubs in respective districts.
Upon successful completion of the 100 community actions, the Hill Country Youth Peace Summit will be conducted recognizing the impact of Peace Pioneers. This will be a moment to celebrate their effort and also to have a discussion with experts on peace, human rights and social cohesion at the Summit.
