Chairman of the Kaduna State Peace Commission in Northwest Nigeria, Barr. Priscilla Ankut has identified Capacity building as an effective tool in community- driven approach to peace building and sustenance.
In pursuance of this, she said, the Commission has continuously evolved initiatives involving state and non- state actors to offer most effective approach to ensuring sustainable peace and security in communities.
The Commission Chairman stated this on Monday in Kaduna in a message to a 3 -Day training workshop for members of ATYAP Peace and Security Partnership who were drawn from the chiefdom, comprising the Atyap, Fulanis and Hausas.
The workshop was jointly organised by the Commission, USAID and Mercy Corps, a non- governmental organisation specialized in peace building and conflict management.
Ankut said the training workshop came at the time of painstaking efforts at ensuring peace in the community, and reaffirmed the commitment of the Commission to join hands with relevant stakeholders in peace building process in Kaduna State.
“The Commission believes that working with stakeholders including community, religious, youth, women group, traditional and political leaders will encourage dialogue, negotiation and mediation efforts”, she emphasised.
To strengthen community engagement and stepping down of peace building process, she said, the Commission has inaugurated Local Government Area peace committees and encouraged councils to establish same at Ward level.
She applauded the contribution of the NGO, Mercy Corps for adding value to the commission’s peace efforts to build the capacity of volunteers in that regard.
She equally commended the State government for its support towards attaining the objectives of the Commission.
In his contribution, the Resource person who also an official of the NGO, Sani Suleiman stated that the collaborative efforts in peace building in communities in the State had been yielding fruitful results.
He expressed the belief that with the capacity building, the participants would become stronger in working with the people towards achieving peaceful coexistence.
Sani said he was encouraged by the openness exhibited by the participants who would later take ownership of the peace building process in their locality.
Conflict, Sani said, was part of human life for people to disagree, but how they respond, matters.
The participants are being brainstormed on stages of conflict development, escalation and mitigation.
