The iDove Intercontinental Youth Forum 2025, held from 26th till 28th November, brought together young peacebuilders, practitioners, and experts committed to rethinking and reimagining approaches to violence prevention (VP) in an increasingly complex world. Organized as part of the global iDove initiative, the forum offered a space for deep reflection, skills-building, and collaborative innovation through a series of interactive sessions.
This year, United Religions Initiative (URI) was represented by Lejla Hasandedic-Dapo, URI Membership Growth Coordinator and URI Europe CC Liaison Officer, who participated in the forum discussions and contributed URI’s perspective on interfaith collaboration, community-based resilience, and youth-led peacebuilding.
The iDove Forum offered a rich program focused on innovation, intersectionality, and youth leadership in violence prevention. Participants began by exploring how local experiences of violence are shaped by broader political, technological, and social systems, reflecting on how their identities and roles influence their responses. Sessions on resilience emphasized psychological well-being, coping strategies, and the importance of supportive networks for sustaining peace work.
Young leaders then examined what it means to reimagine violence prevention in today’s world, addressing emerging digital violence, polarization, hate speech, intergenerational trauma, and systemic inequalities, while recognizing the power of interfaith and intercultural collaboration.
Skill-building workshops strengthened capacities in storytelling, monitoring and evaluation, ethical engagement, understanding root causes of violence, and effective project design.
Throughout the forum, partnership-building remained central, with youth from Europe, Africa, and beyond co-creating ideas and identifying long-term opportunities for joint initiatives and collective action.
Representing URI at the iDove Forum, Lejla brought a distinctly interfaith and community-rooted perspective to the discussions. She highlighted the essential role that interfaith cooperation plays in violence prevention, drawing from URI’s global grassroots network active in more than 113 countries.
URI will continue to support youth in co-designing VP initiatives, strengthening leadership capacities, sharing knowledge globally, and building more resilient communities. URI expresses deep appreciation to the organizers and participants of the forum, whose dedication brings us closer to a world where young leaders drive meaningful, lasting peace.
