BRAC University awards certificates to participants of training facilitation

Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), BRAC University has organised a certificate awarding ceremony for the participants of Training of Trainers on Facilitation. 

The event was held at BRAC University Auditorium on Tuesday (28 December) with the support of UN Women Bangladesh. 

This ceremony was a follow-up event of a five-day-long residential training held on 1-5 November, conducted by CPJ, BRAC University. 

Twenty-Seven participants from CPJ, Peace Cafes, Institute of Informatics and Development (IID), Bangladesh Youth Enterprise Advice & Helpcentre (B'Yeah), Nagorik Uddyog and Rights Centre Trust participated in the training. 

The training was facilitated by Dr Motahar Akand, chairperson, Rights Centre Trust. 

The certificate awarding ceremony began with a welcome note from Manzoor Hasan, OBE, executive director, Centre for Peace and Justice. 

He talked about the inception background of CPJ and its primer goal of working on SDG 16 which is "Promote Just, Peaceful and Inclusive Societies". 

Further, he mentioned how CPJ have worked for social cohesion among different groups and bring peace and justice through the CPJ's Legal Empowerment and Peace Cafes teams.

Following this, he emphasised arranging ToT, capacity development of youths and enabling them to face the existing challenges of the society. 

He also warmly thanked the UN Women Bangladesh for supporting this training. 

The discussion was followed by reflection sharing from some of the ToT participants, who shared their learning outcomes, best practices and lessons learned from the training. 

Dr Dave Dowland, registrar, BRAC University, special guest of the ceremony,  briefed on the establishment of BRAC University and its shared dreams with CPJ of eradicating poverty, enabling communities with practical tools for social wellbeing and social justice. 

He also praised CPJ's action towards facilitating youth to be facilitators of peace in their own communities. 

Tania Sharmin, programme analyst, UN Women Bangladesh talked about UN Women and CPJ's efforts in piloting the Women Peace Café initiative and how it has emerged organically since its establishment. 

She particularly emphasised empowering women to be peace-builders and not the victims of the conflicts anymore. 

She also expressed her gratitude toward CPJ and the Women Peace Café members for collaborating toward creating peaceful communities. 

Dr Motahar Akand, who was the training facilitator, expressed his gratitude to CPJ for organizing this training and bringing together different youths and organizations of Bangladesh. 

He emphasised the significance of such opportunities for youths and stated that investment on youths especially revenue generation. 

"Training on facilitation is highly vital for youths nowadays and make them future enablers through participatory-outcome training" said Ayesha Taasin Khan, the director of Friendship foundation. 

The ceremony was closed with the vote of thanks from director of Academic and Legal Empowerment, Centre for Peace and Justice Mr Shahariar Sadat.