In February, Asfar took part in a peace building and conflict transformation seminar hosted by CRISP in Berlin, and I was lucky enough to take part. We met a group of inspiring young people from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova who had been trained by CRISP to deliver peace building programmes with young people in their own local contexts. Their commitment and determination was astonishing. They spoke about running crisis simulation games with youth from all sides of the conflict in Ukraine, non-violent activism around elections in Moldova, workshops on stopping early forced marriages in Azerbaijan, and shared ideas for good practice and new ideas. One amazing project in Russia uses comics as a tool to discuss conflict and marginalisation with young people in schools, running workshops where young people write their own comics about the ‘other’ and commissioning graphic artists to transform young people’s stories into comics. A brilliantly innovative project to follow, and replicate! – for more info http://respect.com.mx/en/ (resources available to use in English)
