The Messengers of Hope — Af-Pak Youth Dialogue
In a hot Saturday of July 2013, in Kabul, two high officials sitting in the smallest smoke filled room of a two-floor office, taking sips of green tea and discussing solutions for the historical problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
No! These officials were not President Ghani and CEO, Abdullah Abdullah or president Karzai with his team! They were two youth activists in Kabul, who were barely in their early twenties.
Our pitch was to involve people. This is the start of a dialogue between the two nations, whose governments have been in conflict for almost the entire age of their neighborhood.
For whatever reasons, governments may be in conflict but the citizens of the two countries have had shared memories as well as shared problems. Even though the citizens are not in conflict with each other, they have not taken part in resolving the government’s conflicts. After all, the price we [people] pay is loss of our [people] lives in both countries on daily basis.
Upholding great memories from the citizens of Pakistan, we decided to establish “Af-Pak Youth Dialogue” and bring youth of both countries [Which is over 50% of the population of both countries] into dialogue.
Afghanistan New Generation Organization (ANGO) in collaboration with Peace, Education and Development (PEAD) Foundation in Pakistan organized the first ever Af-Pak Youth Dialogue to promote the culture of people to people dialogue between the two nations. The Af-Pak Youth Dialogue is designed for one year to bring in 8 young delegates from each of the countries together to discuss and build up on their similarities and remove misperceptions that exists between the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Finally in a sunny Saturday of May 2015 in Kabul, unlike any other day, the very clear sky complementary to the warmth of the sun, Kabul was about to start its first day of a weeklong conference, hosting 16 youth delegates [8 from Afghanistan & 8 from Pakistan].
The stakes of the initial conference in Kabul were very high. We had to give it a good kick-start to give a momentum for the rest of the program. Several weeks of preparations and arrangements from organizing meetings with government officials to designing and liaising the work had come to realization.
The level of excitement and concern were both at its peak. Excitement was for the beginning of a probable historical event and to showcase the progress Afghanistan has witnessed in the past years. The cliché for Afghanistan has been the war it has experienced. This has given our neighbors that; nothing good has happened or happens in Afghanistan.
Before coming to Afghanistan one of the Pakistani delegates in social media had shared her concern of the security situation, and the response from another Pakistani delegate was “ we are all going at our own risk”. This misunderstanding was changed when they came to Kabul.
The first thing they had witnessed was we [afghans] are no different than them [Pakistanis]. One of the delegates said it in his TV interview, “the only difference between Afghanistan and Pakistan is that we [in Pakistan] drive in the left side of the road, and you [in Afghanistan] drive in right side of the road.”
Over the course of five days, our Pakistani guests were witnesses of first hand information about Kabul and through our delegates, about Afghanistan. From a first experience of bowling [for some], to taking pictures of the ruins of the Darulaman Palace, from the state of art facilities of ACKU [Afghanistan Center at Kabul University] to the electricity cuts and getting stuck in Intercontinental hotel’s elevators, from the warm welcome of university students to the long searches of security guards, from the calm and warmth of lake Qargha to the deserted park of Khair Khana, where they planted friendship trees, the delegates saw both sides of the Afghan coin.
All in all they felt home and had a great experience in Kabul. Or at least we thought they did. After all, the Pakistani delegates did tweet “Afghanistan and Pakistan are twin brothers”
However, just a visit wasn’t the ultimate goal of Af-Pak Youth Dialogue Kabul conference. The Afghan and Pakistani delegates developed the first ever ‘people to people dialogue roadmap’ that delivers an action plan of what they will do upon their return. The enthusiasm and motivation they put into their future cooperation’s road map was beyond our expectations. The delegates of both sides nurtured life- long friendships, which will further strengthen the ties between the two nations.
The delegates traveled back to their communities to tell the stories of their new family in Kabul, to show pictures of the progress and their own poses with Afghan clothes in Kabul and the most important message that “We share the same problems…”
We would wrap this article with a quote from the interview of one of the delegates in a TV discussion, when asked, “how would these 16 people, [from Afghanistan & Pakistan] bring the people of both nations close to each other”.
The answer was “The 16 delegates will influence 16 families’ ideas about the two countries. Everything starts small”.
Here is to a prosperous future.
Ilias Alami and Suleiman Amanzad are founding members of Afghanistan New Generation Organization, Afghanistan’s premiere youth empowerment organization.
Suleiman Amanzad is currently studying at American University of Afghanistan and is the Creative Director at Rumi Consultancy, ANGO’s sister consultancy firm.
Ilias Alami is currently studying at American University of Afghanistan and is the Operations Manager for the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee.
