LAHORE: August 18, 2022. The speakers at a project closing ceremony on Saturday said role of civil society was important for sustainable peace and constructive future.
The speakers included civil society representatives, students of universities and government officials.
The project closing ceremony: Together for Peace Project closing ceremony was
held in Lahore by Initiatives for SustainableDevelopment – IFSD & The Asia
Foundation.
“When civil society comes to work together it gives us hope that we have a
constructive future ahead of us” said, Gul Hasan Abbas, Executive Director
Initiatives For SustainableDevelopment- IFSD, Farva Rashid, programme coordinator of Asia Foundation, said the project was launched by the Asia Foundation in 2018 in Punjab, KP and Sindh in collaboration
with Bytes for All; Initiative for Sustainable Development; Legal Rights Foundation and the Accountability Lab with an objective to reducing violence against the vulnerable segments of the society.
This was achieved through Institutionalising Preemptive Early Warning Mechanism and strengthening support networks for marginalised population.
She further shared that the Punjab Women Protection Authority (PWPA),
Directorate of Human Rights (DoHR), Social Welfare Department (SWD) Sindh and National Commission for Human Right (NCHR) were the strategic partners of the project.
Director General Punjab Women Protection Authority said that a state-of-the-art
early warning system was designed and implemented through this project
enabling archiving of human rights violations, timely response, analysis and the future policy making. The system enabled the inclusion of local government and other state institutions for effective referral mechanism and support to the victims of violence. The deployment had also enabled the department to archive and analyze the data for effective policy making.
The students from partner academic institutions including University of the Punjab , Lahore College For Women University, Gender studies Fatima Jinnah College also shared their journey, learning and impact of the programme on their lives.
A notification ceremony was held in which youth peace ambassadors of from
different universities officially registered with Punjab Women Protection
Authority as a volunteer peace ambassadors to report incidences of violence against women and other marginalised groups in their respective areas across the Punjab through Early Warning Mobile Application.
An appreciation ceremony was held in which In which the role of different
departments & young people in making the project successful was appreciated.
A wonderful musical performance was presented by the students of
Forman Christian College University ( FCU).
