Kigali, Rwanda: 17 youth from DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania trained as youth trainers

A total of 17 youth, 8 women and 9 men, among the 100 youth initiatives selected for the Great Lakes Youth Network for Dialogue and Peace. Our Diversity – our Opportunity! Project, took part in a Training of Trainers held in Kigali, Rwanda, from March 21 to 25, 2022. Under the supervision of the experts and the project team, these practical and in-depth training sessions covered topics such as conflict management, mediation and advocacy, critical thinking, organizational development, social media management, non-violent communication, and adult-learning-methods. These sessions were accompanied by site visits to further explore certain topics, as well as group work on the development of training modules and plenary presentations.

This Training of Trainers was officially launched by His Excellency Nicola Bellomo, the Ambassador of the European Union in the Republic of Rwanda, after the opening remarks by Brother Vital Ringuyeneza, the General Director of Vision Jeunesse Nouvelle and Mrs. Mariamu Aganze, the Project Manager of the Great Lakes Youth Network project on behalf of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. The different remarks turned around the roles of youth in promoting peace and dialogue in the Great Lakes region.

The training sessions were divided into three parts. Firstly, lectures by experts on the above-mentioned themes that the trainees would be able to develop during the training sessions to be organized later on in their communities, secondly, visits to sites including the Genocide memorial, as well as the Institut de Recherche et de Dialogue pour la Paix (IRDP), and the Kigali City Tour, to learn from Rwanda's experience in its peace, mediation, and how it rebuilt by dialogue processes, and thirdly practical exercises.

Indeed, this third part constituted the major part of the training. The trainees were assigned training subjects for them to prepare in advance and in return train their peers within a specific, timing given by the experts in a plenary. The plenary was composed of their peers, expert trainers, and the project team who gave feedback on the training methods used by the youth trainers after the presentations. These comments were taken into consideration by the youth trainers for next presentations after receiving feedback. These comments touched on several aspects of the exercise, such as methodology, respect for timing, control of the audience, the content of the module, etc. This approach gave enough space to youth to practice training methods so that they are able to pass on the acquired skills and knowledge to their peers in their communities.

The first Training of Trainers session was officially closed by the Country Director of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in the DRC and Project Director, Mr. Jakob Kerstan, who handed out certificates of participation to the 17 trainees. He reminded them that they would have in their turn to pass on the acquired knowledge to their peers in the community through a series of mini training that would last for a period of one year and promised them that they would continue to benefit from the project's support.