Young people have been urged to spread peace in the Great Lakes, a region that has a history marked by periods of conflict and political instability.

Brought together by Interpeace, in partnership with other regional organisations which focus on conflict resolution and peacebuilding, more than 70 youth representatives from Burundi, DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, deliberated their role in promoting peace and security.

The three-day dialogue concluded on Wednesday, December 13 in Kigali also attracted policymakers, researchers, and civil society, focused on the situation in the region, hindrance to peace and development, and the role of the youth in ensuring peaceful coexistence.

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"The youth have the capacity to preach the message of peace in this region. They use social media and they can influence their peers in having positive perceptions about people of different cultural and historical backgrounds,” said Charles Ndayiziga, the representative of Interpeace in the Great Lakes Region.

"We have a shared history but also a history which has not always been good and has separated the people,” Ndayiziga said, adding that by having young people from across the region has the power to change long-held stereotypes and misperceptions.

"We ask the authorities to allow the youth to have these cross-border interactions. The youth will indeed be the leaders tomorrow.”

Even as there are security issues between Rwanda and DR Congo or Burundi and DR Congo, Ndayiziga noted that the leaders had facilitated the youth representatives to tour all those countries.

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The youth dialogue was concluded at a time of rising hate speech against Congolese Tutsi communities and anti-Rwanda sentiments spread on social media, sometimes by political leaders.

"We encourage the youth to unite, to have love and avoid discrimination,” said Paul Rukesha, the Director General of Communications and Partnerships at the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement.

"At the centre of everything we do at the Ministry is the unity of Rwandans. But we also wish our neighbours to have unity with us and let it transcend the Great Lakes Region in the spirit of Pan-Africanism.

Rukesha urged the youth to use social media in positive ways that repel hate speech.

"The youth should also be aware of the impact of seeds of hate. Hate spreads. You know very well that people who committed the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi fled to the neighbouring country and they have spread their hate on social media. Young people should use social media as a tool to change society positively.”

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The youth participants said the interactions were an important factor in understanding each other’s culture and realities in order to promote peace.

"We have spent one year traveling to the countries in the region and we have learnt a lot from all the cultures. At first, we did not connect easily due to language barriers, societal barriers as well as history, but today we speak the language of peace and we will do our part in ensuring the region can have peace,” said Esther Mutegwaraba from Rwanda

For Emmanuel Munyokoli from Uganda, the people of the Great Lakes Region should be the ones to solve security issues instead of looking for solutions from outside.

"The Great Lakes Region has been faced with so many challenges and conflicts and these conflicts are recurring. Sometimes, I ask myself whether we haven’t learnt from the different conflicts we have gone through as a region,” Munyokoli said.

"Why is it that we have failed to address this issue so much that we need foreign intervention, and foreign missions to come and sort the problems that we create ourselves,” he said, adding that with support from political leaders and governments, the youth can spur the positive change that is desired.

The dialogue held in Kigali is one of 19 inter-generational and cross-cultural interactions held since 2021 in the countries in the Great Lakes Region, which were attended by nearly 650 people.