Global Peacebuilders session in Nepal.
In December 2024, the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) Nepal sponsored several capacity-building workshops in Kathmandu supporting youth leadership. Each workshop focused on a different topic relevant to equipping young people with the knowledge and skills to become leaders. Topics covered included emotional intelligence in leadership and financial literacy, moral and innovative leadership, and community-driven peacebuilding.
Two Global Peace Leadership Program (GPLP) fellows, Purnima Bista and Ram Prasad Pokhrel facilitated the December 3 workshop on “Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Basics of Financial Literacy.” Purnima engaged the participants in group discussions to assist them in developing techniques and methods to gain emotional intelligence and learn to use empathy and mindfulness in resolving challenges. She also conducted a small survey to identify their emotional intelligence and ranking.
Representatives take notes during group discussions on community-driven peacebuilding.
Following the discussion on emotional intelligence, Ram discussed the basics of financial literacy, emphasizing how ethical and impactful investments can lead to sustainable societal growth. He also discussed the importance of investing wisely by knowing key financial indicators of a business, such as the price-to-earnings ratio, dividend, and earnings per share of stock.
The session was well received by the five youths who participated in the training. According to Dripti Dhakal, “The session on emotional intelligence in leadership helped me to realize the importance of EI in our lives and provided me skills regarding how we could be able to understand our own emotions and others to respond to a situation wisely.” Further, Sovit Khadka stated, “The session on financial literacy helps me to understand various technical terms, for instance, market price, EPS, and dividend. From the session I indeed knew how to do ethical investment to have economic progress.”
Twelve bachelor-level students attended a Moral and Innovative Leadership Workshop (MILW) at Kadambari Memorial College on December 10. Focusing on character building and leadership development, the young attendees were introduced to key concepts, including the traits of true leaders and GPF’s values framework. The students also engaged in a group personality compass activity, where in addition to learning their unique strengths and those of others, they learned techniques for effectively working together.
Participants reflected positively on their interactive MILW experience. Sajana Khadka noted, “I learned that moral and innovative leadership is significant in shaping good characters in us.” Commenting on the personality compass, Archana Rijal observed, “Through the activity, I knew my own potential strengths, weaknesses, and how to cooperate with people having different attributes than me.” Overall, the participants felt inspired having gained additional insight into themselves, their purpose, and how they can add value to creating peaceful coexistence.
Youth in Nepal participate in a Moral and Innovative Youth Leadership workshop hosted by GPF Nepal.
The Community-Driven Peacebuilding program was held on December 26 and December 27. GPF’s International President, James Flynn, introduced the organization’s values and principles to the 15 young participants via a video presentation where he emphasized that values-based peacebuilding begins at the family level and expands to communities and multi-sector partnerships.
On the program’s first day, Sagar Khadka, the Youth Leadership Development Program Officer, facilitated the discussion on community-driven peacebuilding. Participants reflected on GPF’s values framework—Living for the Greater Good, Dream Big, Ownership, and Teamwork, generated peacebuilding ideas for their communities such as climate change, women’s empowerment, and promoting good health, and discussed how to implement them.
The following day, participants learned about GPF’s Global Peace Leadership Corps in an inspiring video presentation by Mr. Flynn. In it, he discussed the transformative power of our shared humanity and the importance of each individual’s role in peacebuilding.
Participants reflected on the qualities of effective peacebuilding and discussed how to develop these skills. In addition, they collaboratively developed two projects designed to positively impact their communities by creating social cohesion and empowering women. Motivated by what they learned, the young participants embraced their role as changemakers in their commitment to engage in peacebuilding efforts in their daily lives. According to Chetan Pandey, “This session has strengthened my understanding of the importance of GPF values, principles, and vision.”
It is critical to value and nurture youth while conveying to them the knowledge and skills needed to be moral and innovative leaders who embrace their role as peacebuilders. All three sessions proved to be powerful learning experiences for the diverse youth who participated. While each session focused on different topics, they all centered on GPF’s vision of our shared humanity as the basis for creating social cohesion and sustainable peace.
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