The SDG Youth International has called on stakeholders in the education sector to push peace education in schools to equip students to be agents of peace in communities.
Mr. Uzoh Ifeanyi, Country Representative for Nigeria and African Regional Representative, made the call in a statement in commemoration of the 2024 International Education Day.
Ifeanyi said that the SDG Youth International proudly aligned with the objectives of UNESCO in dedicating the International Day of Education to the crucial role education and teachers play.
He said that they help in countering hate speech, a phenomenon that has snowballed in recent years with the use of social media, damaging the fabric of our societies.
“The world all over, including Nigeria in particular, has witnessed a surge of violent conflicts paralleled by an alarming rise of discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and hate speech.
“The impact of this violence transcends any boundary based on geography, gender, race, religion, politics, offline, and online.
“An active commitment to peace is more urgent today than ever: Education is central to these endeavors, as underlined by the UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development.
“The SDG Youth International wishes to strongly advise and call on all stakeholders to push “Learning for Peace” to be transformative towards empowering learners with the knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills to become agents of peace in their communities.”
Ifeanyi said that the three key regulatory agencies with specialised mandates and supervisory purviews on the Nigerian universities, polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education system have fully endorsed and accepted the collaboration.
This, he said, was to make the event an epoch-making event and history, considering that the SDG was almost over.
“The SDG Youth was established in 2019, with its headquarters in Korea, under the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and endorsed by the United Nations.
“This is to advance education, engagement, employability, and entrepreneurship for young people globally in consonance with the 17 SDG Goals.
“This gives us the capacity to mobilise financial, material, human, and technical resources from prospective and existing partners to host the maiden edition of this conference in Nigeria; hence, there is no better time than to hold this press conference today.”
Ifeanyi, therefore, called on relevant partners and stakeholders to collaborate with the organization as windows of opportunities ranging from local to international networking and linkages at our disposal can be leveraged.
He said that in the following week, further details and modalities on the format of the conference would be made public.
He said that in the interim, a local organizing committee has been constituted with nominations from NUC, NBTE, NCCE, FME, FMYD, and OSSAP-SDG, while the kick-off, starting with the official flag-off of the essay competition and prizes expected by winners, is hereby made public for the media and all stakeholders to give greater publicity for student participation.
Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
