Pulwama, 25-03-2021: Members of “Save Youth Save Future” organised the latest event of series of full-day trainings as part of the project “Free 4 Youth: Fighting radicalization to enhance e-strategy for a youth-comprehensive approach towards on-line terrorism”.

The event was hosted in KCEF Law College Pulwama and was attended by up to 100 young people. The event consisted of two training sessions. The first one was a practical session on various social media platforms, where participants had the opportunity to create their own Facebook group, YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter or other account in order to be able to manage it and share positive content. The session further highlighted the dangers in the utilization of social media.

The second workshop was an interactive session on renouncing violence, recognising vulnerability to violent radicalisation and showcasing willingness to channel energy towards a concrete and beneficial developments of the society. There were 5 trainers, amongst which there were renounced social and political activists and a former Registrar Cluster University Srinagar. The speakers explained in detail the processes of radicalization and how to counter radical and violent thought processes in both the physical  and virtual space.

The entire training aimed at uplifting youth by shunning the path of radicalization and raising awareness among the young diaspora on how to explore legitimate carrier opportunities both within Jammu and Kashmir and across India. Such youth-oriented programmes focus at empowering and educating the locals in order for them to realize the negative socio-economic implications as well as the human cost of violence and terrorism.

The trainers emphasized on the fact that the Free 4 Youth project aims to provide platform to the young generation of Kashmiris for the purposes of exploring their talents in a positive and productive way. At the end of the event the Chairman of SYSF argued that it is important to organise such events in the future in order to connect the youth with the State and thereby try to minimise the existing trust deficit since young people are the future of the nation and we need to collectively support and engage with them so as to prevent them from falling into the trap of radical propaganda. The trainers finished by thanking the youth of Pulwama for their overwhelming support and participation.