Peace initiative seeks to empower youth
FOLLOWING a successful youth peace-building camp launched in December, Mentoring Peace Builders SA NPC intends to conduct two more this year and has appealed to the public and businesses to support its efforts.
Mentoring Peace Builders South Africa NPC is a non-profit organisation that aims to create a culture of peace by empowering young people to become leaders and peacemakers. These are done through a number of peace-building and mentoring initiatives in Cape Town. The organisation, founded in 2018, is part of the Peace Jam Foundation, a global movement of 14 Noble Peace Laureates who mentor young people to change the world through service and education.
Last month, the organisation launched “Rainbow Promises” Youth Peace Building Camp, a peacekeeping camp on December 8-10 at the Glencairn Rotary Youth Camp with 30 girls invited to participate.
Co-founder and director Earl Mentor said: “Mentoring Peace Builders South Africa NPC oversees the ‘Rainbow Promises’ Youth Peace Building Camps project. In order to help launch this impactful engagement project in South Africa, our organisation has partnered with Rotary Club For Global Action and Negus World. We have done this by identifying young, aspirational changemakers who are uniquely qualified to comprehend and address the complex issues facing humanity and the planet. We provide our camp participants with resources and tools that have won awards in order to empower them to effectively impact change in their local communities.”
A camp for boys will take place from March 25-27 and a mixed camp on June 18-20. Boys in its year-long community-building programme will be invited to attend the upcoming camp.
“Our school facilitators, who have worked closely with these male students in our high school programme that we refer to as Peace building Hubs, will identify the young male learners to partake in our next youth peace-building camp. These particular male students are deliberately chosen because they pose a risk to their communities and schools and require immediate assistance to improve their lot in life,” said Mentor.
Girl’s camp participant Sorcha Kudzieta, 17, from Ocean View found out about the organisation and subsequently got involved after they had visited her school.
For Kudzieta, the camp provided a space to explore creativity through activities such as poetry writing, among other activities.
“We had a writing and art workshop where we had to draw or write about what we think is peace which was something wonderful because it gave me time to think about my concept of peace and I actually wrote a poem about it and painted a portrait to go with it.”
To find out how to assist, email programmes@mentoringpeacebuilders.org