Energetic youth heritage Initiative (EYHI) kick started the year ready to evolve and expand
her work across six LGAs in Gombe State, namely; Akko, Balanga, Billiri, Gombe, Kaltungo
and Shongom LGAs, reaching the identified conflict prone communities with a message
‘’building the resilience of youth in responding to conflict and youth restiveness’’. To
officially launch the programs and campaigns for the year, we engaged our staff as it is the
norm in one week strategic and planning meeting in order to reinforce the goal and
objectives of the project.
Programmatically, In order to implement this holistic approach, EYHI proposed a year program
with the overall goal of Improving Sub National Capacity to Manage Conflict: improving
government and civil society capacity to manage conflict through work on prevention, mitigation
and reconciliation with sectorial partners within the first quarter and, we secured support
from new donors ‘’State2State’’ sponsored project building the resilience of youth in
responding to conflict and youth restiveness in Gombe state, Nigeria. Through these
interventions, EYHI was able to embark on series of activities which include the following:

Orientation Meeting

The project commenced with a one-week start-up period, dedicated
to holding strategic meetings, planning with project staff and defined the roles and
responsibilities of each staff, and agreed upon an implementation timeline

Our M&E staff also included facilitating the development of a baseline study plan, and the
validation of an M&E framework. Regular meetings with project staff provided a forum for
discussion and a framework for addressing issues that arise in the process.
Some of the meeting also featured stakeholders. This was to enlighten the stakeholders
about the state2state project. The stakeholders present welcomed the new development
and gave their words of support and collaboration for the success of the project in the state.
According to them, government has failed in the aspect of security and peace building, that
if nongovernmental organizations will be coming for an intervention, peace will be attained
in the country at large not only in Gombe state

4.2 Advocacy Dialogue/Visit to Gate Keepers:

EYHI conducted 6 advocacy visits from
24th of January to10 relevant stakeholders whom were identified in each of the 6 target
Local Government Areas. The advocacy was aimed at building relationships and to seek for
support and collaboration in the attainment of the project goals and objective. The
advocacy has been conducted in 6 Local Government Areas (Akko, Balanga, Billiri,
Kaltungo, Gombe and Shongom LGA). All the stakeholders gave their full support for the project implementation.

4.3 Capacity building Early Warning and Early Response:

: A one day capacity building
training for youth was organized by Energetic Youth Heritage Initiative partnering with
State2state, on early warning and early response mechanism which was aimed at
enhancing the capacity of youth on how to identify and respond to any conflict early
warning signs in their communities and to strengthen collaboration with relevant gate
keepers in responding to conflict early warning and early response.

A total of two hundred and seven-eight (261) participants were drawn from different
organizations and communities. These included representatives of traditional leaders,
representatives of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), representative of women wing
Christian Association of Nigeria( Women CAN) representatives of Federation of Muslim
women’s Association in Nigeria(FOMWAN), representative of Jama’atuNasril Islam(JNI)
representative of Nigeria Police Force, Civil Defense corps, District security officer(DSO),
DSS, People With Disabilities(PWDs), National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA)
representative, Youth CAN, representatives of the conflict prone communities across the six
LGAs and desegregated as:

The training was conducted in each of the six LGAs, starting from 14TH of February 2022
with Akko LGA followed by Balanga 15th, Billiri 16Th, Shongom 18th, Kaltungo 22nd and it
was rounded up in Gombe LGA on the 23RD of February 2022. It was conducted as part of
the activities funded by State2state program ‘’building the resilience of youth in responding
to conflict and youth restiveness in Gombe state”.
The training built their capacity on how to prevent, mitigate conflict within their
communities using local resources. The training also led to the emergence of a ‘Youth
Ambassadors Platform for Peace’ in each of the 6 target local governments. Participants in
each of the local governments collectively developed an early warning and response
(EWAR) guide which will be finalized by EYHI and circulated among communities. The
EWAR guide will outline common early signs of conflict and how and where the
appropriate agencies (with contact numbers) to report such early signs.
The participants were drawn from different organizations. These include representatives
of Police Commissioner in Nigeria Police Force, Youth Christian Association of Nigeria
(CAN), women wing Christian Association of Nigeria (Women CAN), Federation of Muslim
women’s Association in Nigeria (FOMWAN), Jama’atuNasril Islam (JNI, Civil Defense corps,
District security officer (DSO), DSS, People With Disabilities (PWDs), Traditional Leaders
and representatives from the conflict prone areas in across the six LGAs.

Gender equality and social inclusion

Conflict affects men and women in different gender-specific ways. We pay close attention
to gender considerations and social inclusion in every stage of our activity design and
implementation. However, in the recruitment exercise of 2 consultants, EYHI recruited
male and female consultants.
From the capacity building training, 91 (35%) out of 261 trained participants were of
female gender. We employ a sensitive “gender-positive” approach that ensures women’s
unique needs and experiences are taken into consideration, while their unique strengths
are maximized. Lastly, for the social inclusion, 14 (5%) out of the 261 trained participants
were persons with disabilities (PWDs) partly meeting the requirements of GESI policy. Find below graphical desegregation of the activity.

Implementation challenges and how they were managed:
There were challenges of delay in responding to advocacy letters by some stakeholders but
we were able follow up on regular basis to ensure that the letter are revisited and
approved for the advocacy

Lessons Learned

EYHI learned that one of the gate keepers like National Human Rights Commission
have their desk officers in each of the 11 LGAs in Gombe state. So there is a need for
the desk officers to be carried along (involved) in the 6 LGAs as representatives of
the NHRC.
 The team also learned that there is a need to also create awareness on youth
empowerment based on the responses received from some of the gate keepers.
 Most of the stakeholders wished that aside from the conflict management training
for the youth, life skills acquisition trainings should be included for the people with
disabilities as well as the youth, will help in curtailing conflict and youth restiveness.

EYHI team discovered that there was an issue of religious sentiment in Akko LGA. So
this intervention really helped to create more awareness and to collaborate
between the two faiths to prevent conflict.
 EYHI team learned that training like this had never been conducted in the LGAs. So,
that really boosted opportunities for the team in achieving their goals.
 Some participants said most people are afraid to report conflicts because of nonconfidentiality by the authorities.

Success stories

 A template and guide for tracking early warning was developed in each of the target
LGAs
 A Peace Ambassadors network was established.in each of the target local
governments. Some of the LGAs have already formed social media platform
(WhatsApp group) to improve early warning communication and promote peace.
 Ministry of Internal Security and Ethical Orientation Gombe, assigned a desk officer
to EYHI in order to support the organization with relevant information concerning
the prone conflict area across the six LGAs in Gombe State.
 According to National Human Rights Commission spoke person Mr. Ndam Nanfa
said that this development will also help them to enlighten the youth community
about their rights and how to channel reports of human rights violations
appropriately.
In conclusion, to expand our work in Gombe State, with support from State2State, EYHI
remains committed to innovate and re-invent new models and strategies towards peace
building that will make every one’s voice count and leave no one behind from the
conflict prone communities and the entire state at large. Notwithstanding the
anticipated setbacks by the insurgency and the increasing threat of shrinking civic
space, we are optimistic that implemented activities will provide great results in our
pursuit of accountability and transparency