![\"Youth](\"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/app\/uploads\/5a882aaf-4e9e-4098-a79a-a210354219e4-750x563.jpeg\")
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July 10, 2019\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 In early June, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) certified 207 youth\u00a0who successfully completed training courses in Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution Education (CRE), Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Business and Entrepreneurship at our Community Learning Center in Juba, South Sudan. Each course lasted three months and was designed to help trainees gain civic and vocational skills that will increase their capacity to promote peace or participate in the economic life of the community.<\/p>\n The successful certification of these 207 trainees was another milestone in our efforts to foster peace and sustainable development in South Sudan. Through our flagship program, the Youth Peacemaker Network (YPN), we work to promote peace, resilience, and prosperity in places affected by long-term conflict \u2013 South Sudan has been mired in civil war for 40 of the last 60 years \u2013 and armed violence. Our work is grounded in the notion that peacebuilding is a grassroots process that must include youth as a key vector of transformative change. Therefore, we continuously seek to empower young men and women from the communities in which we work and free educational courses are a resource designed to help community members develop practical skills to engineer peace and employable skills to achieve economic independence.<\/p>\n The value of youth empowerment for peace and sustainability was acknowledged at the graduation ceremony which was attended by many prominent dignitaries from the South Sudanese government. In his remarks, the Hon. Kuac Wek \u2013 the Undersecretary of Culture \u2013 thanked WPDI for offering young people in South Sudan an opportunity to become self-reliant through gaining new skills. He also told the graduates that they had \u201cmanaged to create a vision\u201d and urged them to \u201cbelieve in yourselves\u201d, calling upon them to make a real difference in the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n This passionate call for change was echoed by the graduates themselves. As Agoth, a CRE course graduate told us, \u201cthe training helped me find a job immediately after I finished with a national organization called Hope Agency for Relief and Development as a Disaster Risk Reduction Officer. I now train community members in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and how to overcome disasters.\u201d Diana, another CRE trainee, concurred and noted that she was \u201cconfident in my ability to teach others throughout the whole nation in CRE\u201d. Undoubtedly, these trainees\u2019 dynamism will have a ripple effect within their communities, helping us achieve our larger goal of peace and sustainable development in South Sudan.<\/p>\n![\"Youth](\"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/app\/uploads\/693a800a-855a-42fc-b671-8ca2e93bfbe4-750x563.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Graduates](\"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/app\/uploads\/065d9ffd-4d95-4e49-8b62-a057a0c09c8e-750x1000.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Education](\"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/app\/uploads\/ae4c2eff-d289-4f26-85ec-97d8a15e8a69.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 10, 2019\u00a0\u2013 In early June, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) certified 207 youth\u00a0who successfully completed training courses in Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution Education (CRE), Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Business and Entrepreneurship at our Community Learning Center in Juba, South Sudan. Each course lasted three months and was designed to help… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n