Submitted by: Marwa Azelmat
Act of Kindness for SDGs: SDG 5: Gender Equality and  SDG 16: Peace, Justice And Strong Institutions 
Country: Morocco

Marwa Azelmat is a 23 years-old, IT Engineer from Morocco. Marwa is a global advocate for peace, justice, and strong institutions. She believes that to realize this goal, we need to foster partnerships between all the SDGs because peaceful societies can only be realized if all the SDGs are achieved!

Furthermore, Marwa believes in the power of youth as a catalyst for peace, which is why she always strives to spread the word and share her acts of kindness to shed light on young people as the agents of peace and to point the fact we cannot build resilience if we don’t invest in the uncovered potential of young people and their work as well.

Marwa has always felt the need to talk about peace-building in Morocco because she realized that people were thinking of peace-building only when it comes to war-torn environments. However, the Security Council, unanimously adopted the resolution 2250 (December 2015) after recognizing the threat to stability and development posed by rising levels of radicalization among young people and urged the member states to consider ways to give young people more space in decision-making at the local, national, regional and international levels.

The resolution stresses the role of young people in promoting a culture of peace, tolerance, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue aimed at discouraging their participation in acts of violence, terrorism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination.

The law gave Marwa the power to unleash her activism to support the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 and the recommendations of the progress study.

Fortunately, Marwa was chosen amongst a bunch of young peace-builders in the MENA region and beyond to attend the UNAOC Young MENA Peace-Builders Programme, and get their full support to build a follow-up activity in her home country, Morocco.

She held a two-day workshop on July 28th and 29th at the Mohamed VI Foundation's media library in partnership with JCI RABAT, which focused on an introduction to concepts and the acquisition of primary assets to enable the participants to build sustainable and effective peace, prevent violent extremism and become effective peace-builders within their communities.

The workshop was designed for young peace-builders, youth leaders, human rights practitioners, and students. It aimed to address tools to counter violent extremism among Moroccan youth. The workshop called on inclusion, intercultural dialogue, and constructive dialogue as well.

Participants were chosen wisely, and diversity was the keyword of the workshop. Hence, the participants embraced their differences, their different backgrounds and their various visions with a common goal. Non-Moroccan residing in Morocco were also present to include their voices as well. They were together fulfilling their promise to leave no one behind to fight violence and extremism.

Given the majority of participants are members of local non-governmental organizations and youth associations in Morocco, a plan was built during the workshop to ensure the sharing of knowledge to the participant’s respective organizations to ensure sustainability and a spirit of partnership.

Know your SDGs:

SDG 16: Peace, Justice And Strong Institutions
SDG5 Gender Equality: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5