Sunday, April 12, 2020

Understanding the challenges of peace


Peace is salvation from the savagery we cause each other. That statement is the ultimate research ideology in which I am focused. Within that statement, I am asking what drives each of us to choose non-peaceful paths? To narrow the scope further, I am looking at situations where youth are going through reintegration/ transition programs. The focus of this work is on reintegration programs of child soldiers and young offenders in Canada. I am picking these two because I truly believe that each experience the savagery of the world intensely.

As I look into the lives of those who have and are going through reintegration programs, I want to learn how we can improve our success rates and more importantly, lower the numbers of those who will need such programs. We must take into consideration the forced realities many youth endure due to the negligence/cruelty of others. Understanding that peace is a choice most people make, those who choose to act in unpeaceful ways will impact the youth. Those youth, I believe will rely 100 percent on mental health for any success towards peace as a choice. Below is an example of the mental health need:


The recent use of children by terrorist has made the issue of child soldiering more alarming. Here many groups such as, IS, Al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), Free Syrian Army (FSA), Ashbal Saddam, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram4 and so forth recruit children and adolescents. After recruiting them, these children are institutionalised in training camps were they undergo harsh combat, weapon training and indoctrinated socially and politically to perform the bids of these terrorist. These children apart from being taught how to make bombs are forced to watch videos of suicide bombings, after which they are sent to the front lines, where they function essentially as human shields, fighters, or as suicide bombers.”1

Taking that quote in mind, I am mixing it into this reality, “Reintegration, which is essential for sustainable return, is defined as the ‘universal enjoyment of full political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights”.2

I am now asking, “what are the experiences of the youth as they weave their way through the realities of non-peace?” For some, what they knew as the civil, social and culture components of life will be altered severely as they endure further alterations of what is right and wrong during their reintegration phases.


 

Title: Peace is salvation from the savagery we cause each other.

Description: A parent brings a child to look at waterfall with a lookout. The lookout is in the middle of the water fall. Beyond that there is a wild sunset. The parent ask the child “What do you see?”

The reply given by the child, “I see a child crying for peace as the world dances upon the head. The parent grips the child tightly and reaffirms both their goals by saying: “We will continue do everything we can to save them.”

1Omodanisi Kemi Beatrice, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of Lagos Campus, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos State. Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3240 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3259 (Online) Vol.93, 2020

2 Haider, Huma. Initiatives and Obstacles to Reintegration in Divided Communities: UNHCR’s Imagine Coexistence Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, 2012. Pg.,6


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