Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation, was invited by Junior Chamber International (JCI) for their inaugural International Summit on Peace, held in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia from 6-8 September 2017. Participants at the conference came from over one hundred countries.
Sanjana was asked to facilitate a workshop titled “Lead by Example: Good Governance for Peaceful Societies”, which ended up having over one hundred participants. Advance planning for feedback from this number of participants in a very short span of time paid off – the session was the only one in the conference to be anchored to audience feedback via custom Google Forms, anchored to key issues:
- Accountability and governance- How best to foster?
- Do you use social media in your advocacy and activism?
- How can youth aspirations be reflected in the seven pillars of governance?
- What are the challenges around the incorporation of democratic participation in existing governance frameworks?
- What are, if any, gender considerations in the use of discursive technologies around participation and representation
Each of these questions were further broken down in forms that the participants filled out after a presentation by Sanjana and a brief plenary discussion. Though internet connectivity at the venue hampered feedback, the discussions amongst and within the groups proved fruitful. Access a PDF of the facilitation slides Sanjana used for the session here.
Access all the questions across all the major themes noted above here. Participant feedback can also be accessed via this link.
Sanjana also spoke at a session titled “Dialogue for Peace: Communicating with Compassion”, facilitated by Mbulelo Bikwani, the Executive Director of The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. Sanjana’s presentation at this session can be downloaded from here.
Sanjana dealt with key opportunities and challenges in communicating Peacebuilding in austere, violent contexts.