On December 8th, 2022, Peace Gate for Development Organization (PGDO) conducted a dialogue session and seminar in the St. Paul House for Church Services in Hamdaniyah, Qaraqosh. This intervention aimed for tackling religious extremism and violence while focusing on social cohesion and peacebuilding in the presence of representatives from the Holy Hussain Shrine visiting for the first time and religious leaders.In addition to the aforementioned, around 100 youths attended. The main highlight of this discussion was to ensure that these youths are engaged; hence; making them take part in preventing and combatting discrimination, intolerance, and violence on grounds of religion or belief in all its forms. The youth posed very interesting and diverse questions which served as an initial step to building a road towards sustainable peace full of mutual understanding, respect, and tolerance.
The outcomes of this intervention planned with the religious leaders were to: Create peace committees in different areas that act as peace leaders • Organize peacebuilding conferences, panel discussions, dialogue sessions, workshops, and roundtables• Conduct assessments and research to formulate a joint peacebuilding booklet• Implement diverse initiatives that builds bridges between individuals from different religious backgrounds, beliefs, and/or sects