ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a dialogue on Saturday said role of civil society was important for sustainable peace and constructive future.

The speakers included civil society representatives, students of universities and government officials.

The dialogue: Together for Peace Project was held here by Asia Foundation in collaboration with Accountability Lab.

“When civil society comes to work together it gives us hope that we have a constructive future ahead of us” said, Haris Qayyum, Senior Adviser, Asia Foundation.

Farva Rashid, programme coordinator of Asia Foundation, said the project was launched by the Asia Foundation in 2018 in Punjab, KP and Sindh in collaboration with Bytes for All; Initiative for Sustainable Development; Legal Rights Foundation and the Accountability Lab with an objective to reducing violence against the vulnerable segments of the society.

This was achieved through Institutionalising Preemptive Early Warning Mechanism and strengthening support networks for marginalised population.

She further shared that the Punjab Women Protection Authority (PWPA), Directorate of Human Rights (DoHR), Social Welfare Department (SWD) Sindh and National Commission for Human Right (NCHR) were the strategic partners of the project.

Abdul Waheed Shaikh, secretary Social Welfare Department, Punjab said that a state-of-the-art early warning system was designed and implemented through this project enabling archiving of human rights violations, timely response, analysis and the future policy making.

The system enabled the inclusion of local government and other state institutions for effective referral mechanism and support to the victims of violence.

The deployment had also enabled the department to archive and analyze the data for effective policy making.

Students from partner academic institutions including Women University Swabi, Abdul Wali Khan University, University of Haripur, Fatima Jinnah Women University, University of Okara, MNS University of Agriculture Multan, University of Karachi and Federal Urdu University of Arts Science and Technology also shared their journey, learning and impact of the programme on their lives.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2022