By Eunice Nnachi, Yenagoa
Over 30 community youth leaders from eight local government areas in Bayelsa have completed a three-day Training of Trainers (ToT) program on conflict sensitivity, organized by Search for Common Ground (SFCG) in Yenagoa.
Funded by the European Union and facilitated by Victor Baba Okpanachi, the program aimed to enhance the capacity of youth leaders in conflict transformation and non-adversarial engagement.
Mr. Kengkeng Ati, the capacity building training officer at SFCG, emphasized the importance of equipping youth leaders with skills to foster inclusive approaches when addressing community issues.
He stated, “we are training the community youth leaders so that we can have an inclusive approach to handle issues in the community. We have young people across Bayelsa state, The whole idea is to train them in a non-adversarial manner that leads to peace.
“Young people have energy and power, sometimes their engagement with the security agencies and their traditional leaders is mostly considered adversarial by giving by force. What we are trying to do is to show them how to engage in a non-adversarial manner, that leads to fostering inclusive security approaches that will help to address the conflict and violence across Bayelsa.
“We expect that, when they go back, they will act in a better way. They will be easier to talk to, they will be brought to conversation tables. It is a Refresher Training, there’s a normalization now between the community youth, traditional and security agencies.
” Normalization has given us an idea on how to go deeper on how to achieve a success story, more action, more collaboration and more connections. Now they have the capacity to stop down this training to others”
The training focused on non-adversarial methods to improve interactions between young people, security agencies, and traditional leaders, which are often marked by conflict.
Okpanachi explained that participants would learn effective conflict resolution techniques and collaborative problem-solving strategies.
He noted that the training would cover the Collaborative Growth Approach (CGA) and basic principles of conflict sensitivity, aiming for a ripple effect as participants return to their communities to share their knowledge.
He said, “The consultancy scope carries that we are going to train the youth leaders across the eight local government areas and across Niger Delta, about 66 communities in conflict sensitivity in terms of CGA, which is a common ground approach and does no harm in conflict resolution basics.
” Training Youth Leaders from various communities of the Niger Delta LGAs. We are training community leaders from the LGA, to understand the common ground approach to conflict resolution.
“Search is a peace building organization. We are trying to make individuals, communities move away from violent situations and buy into a collaborative approach to conflict resolutions.
” We expect that after this training these youth leaders will leave with an action plan on how to approach this conflict, because we are taking them on three day training on the dynamics of conflict and adversarial approach to conflict and buy into a collaborative approach.”
