Transforming Communities for Peaceful Co-existence (TCPC)

Status: On-going
Start Date: Apr 2019
End Date: Mar 2020
Geographic Coverage: 1 District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2 Districts in Punjab
Focus Area: Peace & Harmony
SDG Goal: 11 To ensure sustainable cities and communities
Implementing Partner: SPO
Funding Partner: Norwegian Church Aid

SPO is implementing the project “Transforming Communities for Peaceful Co-existence” through the support of the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) organization. The project in district Peshawar aimed to improve social cohesion through enhancing co-existence among various faiths with reduced levels of violent extremism. The project aims to implement Goal 11 which demands to build sustainable cities and communities.

In the year 2019, the project was initiated in Lahore and Faisalabad to promote peace and social harmony by engaging youth, students in schools, teachers and various religious leaders of all faiths to work towards cultural and social integration through dialogue on peace building in society for sustainable development and for a reduced level of inequality. The main thrust of the project was to work towards reducing hate speech and replace this with a positive narrative of intra and inter-faith harmony by encouraging dialogue between various faith-leaders through electronic media.

Despite the sensitive nature of the project, the pro-active approach and technical expertise of the SPO programme staff provided an opportunity to move towards increasing inter and intra-faith harmony among citizens in district Peshawar. Various potential stakeholders such as AUQAF, Haj, Religious and Minority Affairs Departments, KP, Directorate of Human Rights, Peshawar, Police Department, KP, Education Department KP, civil society organizations, local CBOs, religious leaders, community leaders, women, youth, lawyers, educationists, journalists, media (print and electronic) were engaged through formation of District Dialogue Groups in order to identify, prioritize and to generate positive narrative of intra and interfaith harmony

Ten TV talk shows were produced and aired on a TV channel with nation-wide coverage. One of the main features of the shows was the purchase of prime time for the telecast of series of ten talk shows with the same title “Sab Rang” for ten consecutive weeks. The talk shows became the ‘talk of the town’ and eminent speakers in their respective fields were invited to promote cultural and interfaith harmony.

In the year 2019, the project was initiated in Lahore and Faisalabad to promote peace and social harmony by engaging youth, students in schools, teachers and various religious leaders of all faiths to work towards cultural and social integration through dialogue on peace building in society for sustainable development and for a reduced level of inequality.