During 2023 – 2024 thanks to the financial support from the Swedish Institute (SI), received through YMCA Sweden, the project “Ethics of Peace – Youth Visions” was implemented in Ukraine. It enrolled representatives of YMCA Ukraine and students from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Moreover, youth from Sweden, Armenia, and the USA also became part of the project. Through various project activities the participants thoroughly studied the mechanisms of peacebuilding and gained access to new methods and tools for youth social engagement. YMCA Europe Roots for Peace provided continued backstopping to the project team and partners.
In Ukraine 4 training cycles were held among the youth in Kyiv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr. Participants received knowledge, skills, and competencies that reveal and develop their potential in critical thinking, conflict prevention and dialogue. They also participated in online sessions with youth leaders, researchers, and experts on peace, security, intercultural dialogue, ethics of peace, and critical thinking. Participants gained skills in the field of conflict resolution, intercultural communication, peacebuilding and mediation, critical thinking, including abilities to identify and neutralize the elements of hybrid warfare, including disinformation, fakes, and propaganda. During the project implementation issues of peace ethics, ideas of human development and prosperity were considered within a single conceptual framework.
As a result of the project, methodological materials for workshops and trainings on the formation of critical thinking, fact-checking and countering fakes, conflict resolution and mediation for a youth audience of different age groups (14-16 and 17-20 years old) were elaborated.
Within the project framework a survey of over 200 Ukrainian leaders and volunteers of youth organisations was carried out to illuminate their life strategies, attitudes towards war and peace, knowledge of and skills in conflict resolution and peace-making. Identification and analysis of stress- and conflict-generating factors that negatively affect the lives of young people under martial law were carried out. In addition, coping strategies and methods for overcoming stressful situations in the conditions of a full-scale war were developed, including cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of coping.
The role of youth as a key agent of peace-making was highlighted. In youth environment the values of human development, democracy, self-expression, peace, and respect for others are being most actively formed. Practical recommendations were prepared for civil society organizations to overcome negative and passive attitudes of young people and to involve youth segments in the processes of peace-making and post-war reconstruction of the country. Based on the results of the project, a strategy of the formation and cultivation of peace ethics in the youth environment will be developed.
The project participants and organisers have prepared a new expanded application to the Swedish Institute for the next project so that the ideas developed in this project can be implemented and disseminated in their communities.
The learning framework developed by the project was also applied in Armenia amongst the displaced youth from Nagorno Karabakh. An Ethics of Peace focus groups was mainstreamed during two events and online survey conducted with 178 respondents. This formed the baseline for the Artsakh Exodus Response ad hoc initiative within the YMCA Europe Roots for Peace project, ongoing till 2027.
