In the framework of the project “Building Youth Capacity to Engage Meaningfully in Social Cohesion Initiatives”, funded and supported by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies organized and conducted the first community initiative planning training.

The main objective of the training is to train the participated students on how to design and implement community initiatives that enhance social cohesion within the UoD Student Community, as the participated students are going to design eight small grants provided by the project which are be done in the UoD campus after the end of the training. To achieve this objective, participants learned and practiced the concept of community initiatives, the importance of the context and the tree of conflict in the process of designing and implementation the initiatives, post conflict initiatives and to think of connectors and dividers. In addition, the steps of designing and implementing community initiatives in post conflict societies using peace tree as point of departure for exploring and discussing ideas on their future initiatives that they are planning to implement in UoD Campus were among the topics discussed during this workshop.

A total of 22 UoD students participated in the workshop, of which 31.8% were male and 68.2% were female, 77.3% were Muslims, 18.2% Yazidi and 4.5% were Non. 86.4% of the participated students were from the host community and 13.6% were IDPs. Of total of 22 participants, 50% are students of the Department of Peace and Human Rights Studies, 31.% are the students of the Department of Sociology, the rest of the participants are students of departments of English, Forests, Geography and Psychology.

The workshop conducted on 28-29-30 January 2020 at the University of Duhok Cultural Center. Mr. Adnan Yousif Hussein and Mr. Amjad Ali Hussien have facilitated the workshop; both are instructors at the UoD Department of Peace and Human Rights Studies