Torikashvili Organizes for Peace
Lika Torikashvili '22, Georgia's Youth Representative to the United Nations, co-organized a webinar on Localizing Youth Peace and Security through her project iPEACE.
Torikashvili, who is also the founder of the international youth activist organization Paint the World, began iPEACE with Ramiz Bakhtiar, a fellow UN Youth Delegate from Afghanistan.
iPEACE brings together young leaders from countries in conflict. The growing group plans to organize peace meetings and various events to localize the YPS (youth, peace, and security) agenda of the UN.
Recently, iPEACE gained membership at +Peace, a global coalition of peacebuilding organizations, and also became members of the USA YPS Coalition.
Together with +peace and Peace Direct, iPEACE organized a webinar on the topic of Localizing Youth Peace and Security.
Torikashvili served as one of the moderators and as a speaker at the event.
About the Webinar
The global youth population is over 1.8 billion. Today, 1 in 4 youth are living in conflict-affected environments. Much of the developing world has a majority youth population. The YPS Agenda set forth by the United Nations through the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 was designed to empower young people to become active agents for positive change in their communities and countries. Yet, not many young people are involved in many peace processes. Many coalitions and INGOs working in peace processes around the world often work top-down. Too often young people are sidelined for being too naive, inexperienced, or even scapegoated as a problem that needs solving. There needs to be a shift for the peace and security conversation to be bottom-up. Youth should be empowered to be a part of the peace and security conversations so they can be connected to the peacebuilding and humanitarian initiatives.
We are excited to hold this discussion with youth localizing the YPS agenda in their own communities. Speakers will include: Ramiz Bakhtiar, Co-founder, iPeace, Lika Torikashvili - Co-founder, iPeace; Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi - Executive Director & Founder, HIVE; Regina Arauz - former UN Youth Delegate for Mexico; and Satta F Sheriff - Founder and Executive Director, Youth in Action for Peace and Development (YAPE) & Global Youth Leadership Council, SFCG.