TOWARDS LASTING PEACE IN BAWKU: PEACE COUNCIL DISPATCHES RESEARCHERS (D/G, Monday, February 9,2009. PAGE 15)

THE National Peace Council (NPC) has dispatched a team of researchers to Bawku and its environs in its bid to ensure peace in the area.
The team, headed by the officer in charge of research at the NPC, Mr Emmanuel Sowatey, has been interacting with key players on the ground to assess the situation.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Bawku, Mr Sowatey said the visit was to enable the delegation to learn at first hand how the elections went.
It was also to know the impact of the work done by the NPC through negotiations and workshops held there and how they had contributed to peace in the area.
“We have also come here to see what lessons have been learnt that can help the NPC to bring durable peace to Bawku”, he said.
While in Bawku, the team spoke to the local staff of the National Commission for Civic Education, heads of security agencies, opinion leaders, representatives of the Bawku Naba, youth leaders, and women groups and other key actors.
Mr Sowatey disclosed that as part of its programme to ensure lasting peace, the NPC had instituted a programme dubbed “Youth Ambassadors for Peace” whereby a selected number of youth were sent to Accra and trained on peace.
These students, numbering 35, were chosen from the Bawku Secondary Technical School, Bawku Senior High School, Bawku Technical Institute and Gbewaa Teacher Training College in Pusiga,together with some staff of NCCE were sent to Accra for training on issues of conflict and peace.
“We believe that the youth though form a key constituency in any activity within the conflict, security and development interface, they are often marginalized, hence the institution of this training to help expose them to a whole lot of issues on conflict and peace building.”
According to him “it was a fantastic platform for bonding between these youth from the various tribes in the area, adding that most headmasters have testified that the training has been very useful.
He said most of the beneficiaries have initiated plans to form their own youth groups through which they would transfer what ever lessons they had learnt to their colleagues.
He disclosed that the NPC intended to expand the training programme by reaching out to the drop -outs and women groups in the Bawku area, who would also benefit from similar training programmes in Accra with the view to ensuring that prolonged peace returned to Bawku.
“Without doubt people are saying that our intervention have been one of the contributory factors to the peaceful out come of the elections in Bawku and we intend to continue until there is total peace in Bawku,” he said.
He commended the security agencies as well as other civil society organisations in Bawku for the yeoman role they had played by restoring peace in Bawku.