Youths and women within conflicting communities from selected Aten, Attakar, Chawai, Irigwe and Fulani communities in Plateau and Kaduna States respectively have been trained on community early warning and response systems.
The Two Days capacity-building training held on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th, February 2022 at Dimples Hotel, Jos had participants trained on effective community early warning and response systems for their varying communities organized by the Plateau State Peace Building Agency, the Kaduna State Institute for Peace with funding from the United States Institute for Peace.
Director-General of the Plateau Peace Building Agency, Mr. Joseph Langmang, described the training as part of the ongoing series of mediation and systematic dialogue aimed at bringing lasting peace within conflicting communities in plateau and some parts of southern Kaduna State communities.
Director Of Programs Plateau Peace Building Agency, Mr. Godwin Okoko, said the choice of youths and women leaders for the capacity building training was because of their strengths, availabilty and mobility in communicating with their immediate communities. He further stated that the youths provide effective interaction/communication due to the ability to move around their communities as they are also often considered for community vigilantee.
Mr Okoko said the training will build their capacities and help them in identifying and understanding some intricases that have the potential to disrupt peace or issues that will pose as a challenge to the current peace being experienced in their localities.
He stated that over the years, response mechanism has been the sole responsibility of security agencies, however the Plateau Peace Building Agency has noted that not all conflicts have security threats as such, the need to build their capacities as mediators to be able to address conflict by identifying the parties with issues and also serve as eyes for early warning signs.
Mrs. Mary Limfa, Head of Securities for the Plateau Peace Building Agency, said the training was aimed at addressing the gap identified in the communities and it was key in enhancing the capacities of major actors so as to identify issues that could lead to a 
breakdown of law and order and to also address conflict-related concerns that could be handled at the latent stage and further curb repeated episodes of violent conflict.
She also noted that training communities to initiate some efforts of their own, will go a long way in addressing instances when communities get to blame security agencies for certain inactivity.
The ongoing series of systematic dialogue and capacity-building training has seen the involvement of the key stakeholders in the processes of reconciliation and allow them to drive the processes themselves which is an initiative of the Plateau Peace Building Agency to promote the culture of peace and harmonious coexistence, among the various ethnoreligious divides.
