One component of the Youth Mentorship and Leadership program involved the opportunity for Juvenile staff to undertake international leadership training, and Mohamed Ahmed, Abdulla Samir, and Nasha Abdulla were chosen to attend a weeklong workshop in Sri Lanka from 25^th-29^th. It was run by the PDI-SL, the Peacebuilding and Development Institute of Sri Lanka, and held in Waskaduwa, Kalutara District.

The aim of the workshop was to acknowledge youth’s value as thinking contributors to their community and country, and to take this valuable human resource through a journey of recognizing the abilities of youth as major players in the world today. The objectives were to undergo an experiential learning which would enable youth to understand better their own present state of being the “self” identify their immediate goals and articulate a large vision; to enable youth to become leaders and acquire art based tools to carry out peer interventions in peace building and leadership; to understand the keep connection between the personal process and the work in their respective fields, which involves gathering insights and applying these insights with the methodology for advocacy.

The first day the participants arrived in the evening and were given an introduction to the work of PDI-SL and the course, and each participant was invited to present themselves and the work of their home NGO. The second day covered understanding of issues concerning the youth, an introduction to graph of life, and introduction to paper as form of expression. The third day was an introduction to puppets through games, an introduction to Archetypes and their place in our inner world, and exploring leadership, status and power. The fourth day explored how do we see archetypes in everyday life, and how to recognize which archetypes we immediately identify with. Day five was an introduction to the arts in advocacy.

The Juvenile representatives found the program very useful and were especially pleased with the facilitators, who were experts in their fields and from various countries in South Asia, whose organisational skills and ability to fit so much material into the five days was impressive, as well as their use of the latest techniques for teaching, and international experience. The arts-based approach they employ was creative in its approach to conflict situations, and leadership skills, and will be of much use in future Juvenile activities. Another beneficial element to the workshop was  the exchange of information and ideas with other South Asian NGOs; in sharing lessons learnt, and projects implemented the Juvenile representatives got a good insight into other successful NGO operations, and a few new ideas!

Another positive element to emerge out of the workshop was a good connection with PDI-SL, and Naifaru Juvenile would like to thank all staff involved for such a successful event, and we are looking forward to working on future projects with such an outstanding organization.