GREAT LAKES PEACE CENTRE DOMESTICATING SDG’s

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Great Lakes peace centre is a grass root youth lead organization passionate about implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) that have direct impact within our indigenous community specifically taking on #SDG16 were we derive our mandate of peace building and youth empowerment to avoid radicalizing them. We understand that SDG’s are the blue print for minimum development on the world scale this being able to contextualize them in our rural communities by translating them into our five local languages to facilitate the deeper understanding within our communities we are strategically carrying out specific interventions like visiting focused groups in communities,schools,worshipping places like churches and mosque to interact with groups as they have better understanding of SDG’s. In 2018 Great Lakes Peace center carried out a conference with a theme sowing seeds of peace and coexistence that attracted more than 200 youth from all over Africa to deliberate on issues of how to coexist and have a future free of violence. Also, attracted were our regional peace ambassadors including facilitators. The goal of the Summit was to empower, mentor, and nurture young people with new approaches of dealing with socio-economic challenges that distract the youth from the realization of positive peace in thier communities. The Summit offered a series of workshops, group facilitated activities, and high-profile speakers who educated and mentored the participants on positive peace and social development. The summit was organized in order to maximize interactions, networking and free debates and discussions among its participants. Among other Peace activities, we have carried out peace clinics and reproductive health as we try to avert sexual and gender based violence ,early marriages ,teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS preventions among the adolescents we equipped adolescents with skills to do personal hygiene,making menstrual pads ,making soap and candles to improve on their incomes as they can afford to by scholastic materials for them. This is done through promoting gender inclusion and justice in our communities by organising community dialogues and peer training sessions at grass root level so as to spread awareness on how the women can overcome the unfair norms and myths which normally frustrate their efforts towards self reliability. This helps to realise SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs) #5 which concerns ensuring Gender Equality with much emphasis on its targets 1 &2 which aim at ending discrimination and eliminating violence against all women and girls in our communities. Under the same project Great Lakes Peace Center held a Regional Girl Child symposium commemorating the 16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence in Hima town council where more than 100 girls participated. The event brought together Adolescents, young mothers, political leaders from District and Sub County levels, and care givers from all over the region. “Hear Me Too” was the international theme of the 16 days of activism in 2018. We inspired and empowered our adolescent and youth in different skills such as making pads, mushroom farming among others. We also spread awareness on HIV/AIDS prevention As a result of our award as SDGs finalists for translating and domesticating the goals the Executive Director of Great Lakes Peace center was invited by HOPE FOUNDATION a local NGO in Berlin to facilitate a local program dabbed “Bridging Culture to share experiences about SDG’s & peace building with high school students as part of our commitment to supporting SDGs localization all over the world training students in high schools to take action for the goals. Under our renewable energy project we are implement mitigation measures to combat climate change by distributing out solar energy household units as an alternative source of energy thus reducing carbon accumulation globally. We locally came up with local theme “End of Kerosene Tadoba” We are privileged to Increased access to sustainable and renewable energy alternatives in the Albertine graben project implemented by WWF with support from the European Union that aims at distributing household low end solar systems, and energy saving and clean cook stoves. The social venture model is one of the increasingly desirable for community Sustainability and adoption. We prioritize this in line with SDGs #7- Affordable and clean energy thus eliminating the kerosene lantern- “Etadoba” we have so far distributed more than 100 clean and energy saving cook stoves and more than 50 household units as a start and anticipating to reach our target of 2000 cook stoves and 800 solar household units. In a bid to mentor and build capacity of other organizations to do same work and more continently. The Mediterranean Forum of Tetouan for SDGs - Morocco was one of the events that witnessed a mentorship and inspirational ability. With our secretariat participating in a two days Uganda National Dialogue training for youth ambassador from all over Uganda at Soroti district, Great Lakes Peace Center has been using a similar method of dialogues to attempt Peace building and down playing the reoccurrence of violence in the Rwenzori region which is mostly through youth involvement. Thanks to the Inter-religious Council of Uganda for the partnership and looking forward to working closely in gathering national consensus. As Great lakes peace center we are championing the awareness and scale up of screening so that more people living with Hepatitis B can be identified in our local communites. Great Lakes Peace Center promotes peace through youth empowerment, develops global partnerships for development, improve maternal and Child health, promotes education and empowers women, combats HIV/AIDS through Youth lead advocacy for improved services. We are currently implementing an Adolescent and Young Girls HIV/AIDS Advocacy project 2019 that is aimed at providing vulnerable young girls in HIV/AIDS Hot spots of Kasese to understand their rights and responsibilities, voice out their concerns and inspire young people. www.greatlakespeace.org