Initiatives
led by E HANDS:
Initiatives led by E HANDS related to Building Inclusive
Communities for Peaceful Coexistence are Peace Education Week, National Youth
Peace Summit, Youth for SDG’s and Young Volunteer Corps of Pakistan.

E HANDS commemorated World Interfaith Harmony Week by
organizing a series of activities. The activities are explained below;

1: Social
Media Campaign: E HANDS commemorated World Interfaith Harmony and ran an
online campaign during the week through social media pages. Throughout the
week, we shared such content on our social media pages and groups (Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter & WhatsApp) which raised awareness related to
building the bridges. Our campaign focused on raising awareness related to promoting
the narratives of peace, interfaith harmony and peaceful coexistence.

2: Webinar
on “Interfaith Harmony for Peaceful Co-existence”: To commemorate World Interfaith Harmony Week, E HANDS hosted
a webinar on “Interfaith Harmony for Peaceful Coexistence” which was joined by
peace activists from different religious groups. The webinar was joined by Maria
Akhter, co-chairperson of Peace Promoters. Peace Promoters is an initiative which
work on expanding the peace dialogue and visiting religious sanctuaries in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, one of the most hit area from the War on Terror
and Violent Extremism. The webinar was joined by Avinash Dass who belong to
Hindu community and has worked with UNDP as UN Volunteer to promote the
narratives of peace. The webinar was also joined by Yasir Bhatti who belong to
Christian community and work for peace and harmony in community. The webinar
was also joined by Arindar Singh who belong to Sikh community and is a peace
activist. The webinar was moderated by Jaya Jaggi who belong to Hindu community
and works as a volunteer with E HANDS. Jaya has profound experience of
peacebuilding at community level.

During the webinar, the panelists shared the challenges they
have faced as minority youth in the society. They also highlighted the problems
they have faced during the activism and their efforts for promoting interfaith
harmony. They also discussed that what needs to be done to promote interfaith
harmony for peaceful coexistence. It was decided that visits will be arranged
for the youth belonging to different religions in collaboration with Peace
Promoters to the worship places of different religions (Church, Mosque, Mandir
and Gurdwara) to promote tolerance, acceptance and peaceful coexistence. The
participation of youth in the webinar was outstanding. More than 800 people
belonging to different religions, geographic regions and ethnicities joined the
webinar.

3: Peace
Hike with peace activists from all religious groups: E HANDS commemorated World Interfaith Harmony Week by
organizing series of activities. E HANDS engaged young people from different
religious groups and provided them a platform to connect with like-minded
people and come up with suggestions on how to promote the narratives of peace
and interfaith harmony. The World Interfaith Harmony Week was ended on a Peace
Hike at Margalla Hills National Park Islamabad which was joined by peace
activists from different religious groups where they shared their experiences
and challenges of the work related to promotion of interfaith harmony. It was
also decided that E HANDS will conduct Monthly Study Circles for people
belonging to different faith groups where ideas related to promotion of the
notions of peace and interfaith harmony will be discussed.