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.