Godwin Lasisi, a member of the URI Youth Working Group and CASS Education Foundation in Nigeria shares his reflection on the 2025 URI Youth Challenge.
Across the world, young people are shaping a new narrative of peace, one grounded in grassroots and community-centered deliberate acts of connection. The 2025 URI Youth Month Challenge was a celebration of that spirit: a month-long journey of interfaith dialogue, creative expression, and community action commemorating International Day of Peace, led by the URI Youth Working Group.
From August to September, youth participants from various countries across Africa and Europe met weekly through the URI App and WhatsApp community, responding to a series of challenges designed to transform conversations into collaboration, promoting peace, interfaith dialogue, and sustainable development. Each task reflected one of URI’s core programmatic areas, aligning with the SDG 2030 Strategic Framework and culminating in the International Day of Peace.
What began as a series of weekly activities evolved into a living network of young peacebuilders who listened, created, and acted together across borders. Their reflections revealed how empathy, creativity, and dialogue can quietly shift communities toward healing and cooperation.
Week 1: Interfaith Cooperation and Action
The first task of the youth challenge was to step out of one’s comfort zone and meet someone from a different religious or cultural background. In Liberia, Abraham Kollie met with a Muslim neighbor to explore shared beliefs in compassion and mercy. Stephanie Emmanuel from Nigeria reflected on how prayer and gratitude connect her Christian faith with her friend Hajara’s Muslim practice. From Nigeria to Bulgaria, participants like Barth Tagwi and Nona rediscovered that love, community, and kindness transcend religious boundaries.
Week 2: Ending Religiously Motivated Violence
In week 2, participants wrote heartfelt letters to leaders about how their faith inspires peace and non-violence. Many shared stories of reconciliation, like Adam Khalid and his friend Rebecca, who reconnected years after conflict in Jos, Nigeria, to commit to peace advocacy. Letters from across the regions echoed a shared message: faith must be used to heal, not divide. You read more of each letter here.
Week 3: Earth Restoration – Beat Plastic Pollution
Through art, music, poetry, and environmental action, participants expressed their care for the planet. Sidonia from South Sudan and Nona from Bulgaria both chose to write and record a song for climate action. Godwin Lasisi and Stephanie Emmanuel, both passionate climate advocates in Nigeria, used creative storytelling to inspire youth to address plastic pollution and climate change in their communities. Their work sparked plans for a joint environmental awareness campaign within the URI network.
Week 4: Cultures of Peace, Justice, and Healing
The final week invited intergenerational conversations on healing. Young people like Nelly Minja and Sivenathi Magwa spoke with elders about ancestral wisdom, learning that patience, humility, and community care remain central to healing and peace. This task emerged as the most meaningful, deepening respect between generations and strengthening young people’s sense of continuity within their communities.
At the closing the celebration of the challenge, Karen Volker, URIs Executive Director shared an inspiring message:
“Peacebuilding is not a seasonal act to be done only during challenges like this. It is the rhythm of a conscious life. Let your commitment to peace be something others can catch, make it contagious.”
During the graduation ceremony, feedback from various participants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Niger, Uganda, and other parts of Africa and Europe reflected on how the challenge reshaped their understanding of peace and collaboration.
They spoke of new friendships and emerging partnerships to co-create projects for sustainable development, environmental protection, and interfaith dialogue. Godwin, who is a member of the youth working group, and Stephanie, who was a participant, have already begun working together to mobilize young people on climate action and peace education. Anthonia Folashade and Sarah Oliver also shared their personal experiences mentoring the participants to take on the challenge to be a contagious advocate for peace, collaboration, and dialogue.
The 2025 URI Youth Month Challenge affirmed that young people are not waiting for peace to be built for them; they are building it themselves, one conversation, one act, and one collaboration at a time.
Watch the summary video of the URI Youth Challenge
