By : Hafsa Rizvi
I remember the first time someone asked me what peace meant to me. I didn't think about government buildings or diplomatic meetings. I thought about my mother's kitchen table, where neighbors of different faiths would gather over tea and sort out disagreements before they became divisions. I thought about my teacher who refused to let ethnic lines determine who sat together in class. I thought about the older women in my community who, despite everything they'd survived, still chose to mentor us, still believed we could build something better.
Peace, I've learned, doesn't wear a suit. It wears an apron. It carries textbooks. It shows up at community centers and school gates.
Voices from the Ground
"Peace is not built at the negotiation tables," says Himala Hansani, a young volunteer with IYAP. "It is built at schools, homes, and communities. Peace is not about creating conflict, it is more about creating space for hope, equality, and wellbeing."
Ronali Lokubalasuriya adds another layer: "Peace is not the absence of conflicts, it's about fairness, respect, and equal opportunities. Women's voices bring empathy, understanding, and courage to build communities, and this brings inclusivity."
And Sadhurshana Vasudhevan reminds us of something essential: "The process of peacebuilding is never possible without women. They have important roles and they have the capability to lead and guide upcoming generations."
These aren't theoretical statements. They're truths born from experience, from watching women in their communities do the daily work of reconciliation that rarely makes headlines.
The Local Translation of a Global Agenda
Twenty-five years ago, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 acknowledged what women have always known: that conflict doesn't just happen to us, and neither does peace. But here's what policy papers often miss. Peace isn't delivered from conference rooms. It's built in the spaces between people, in the moments when someone chooses dialogue over division.
In Sri Lanka, where our history has been marked by conflict, young women aren't waiting for permission to participate in peacebuilding. Through the International Youth Alliance for Peace, they're creating it. Operating across 18 districts and partnering with over 140 organizations, IYAP trains 500 to 1,000 young leaders annually, equipping them to lead community initiatives that transform how people relate to one another.
What does this look like in practice? It's the Active Youth Program teaching democratic principles through interactive workshops, creating a generation that understands participation and accountability. It's youth organizing interfaith dialogues in towns where suspicion used to be the default. It's young women mediating family disputes, not because they studied conflict resolution formally, but because they understand that sustainable solutions need to work for daily life.
Since 2013, IYAP has impacted over 25,000 lives. But the real story isn't in the numbers. It's in what happens when a young woman returns to her community after training and asks, "What if we did things differently?"
Why Women's Leadership Changes Everything
When women participate meaningfully in peace processes, something shifts. We don't just add a voice to existing conversations. We ask different questions. We care about whether children can walk to school safely. We think about economic justice, because we know that poverty is its own form of violence. We remember not just those who were lost, but the families left behind, the trauma that lives in bodies and gets passed down.
Research confirms what communities have always known: women's participation makes peace agreements more durable. Not because we're inherently more peaceful, but because we tend to look beyond power dynamics to the realities of people's lives. We create accountability. We generate community buy-in. We make peace last because we understand it's not a moment, it's a practice.
This is what keeps me hopeful. I see young women who grew up in conflict's shadow refusing to accept that violence is inevitable. I see them running for local office, starting social enterprises, teaching peace education. They're not doing this because someone told them to. They're doing it because they've seen what division costs, and they've decided it's too expensive.
A New Generation's Promise
My grandmother's generation survived conflict. My mother's generation worked to end it. My generation? We're here to ensure it never happens again. Not through naive optimism, but through the determined hope of women who know exactly what's at stake and have decided that peace is worth building, one conversation, one community, one courageous act at a time.
This Women, Peace, and Security Day, the invitation is simple but profound. Support youth-led peace initiatives. Amplify young women's voices. Create spaces for dialogue. Invest in the next generation of peacebuilders. Because peace isn't something that happens to us or gets negotiated and delivered. It's something we choose, every day, in the same spaces where we first learned what community means.
Peace begins where we choose to listen, to include, to build. And that choice starts with us, at kitchen tables and school gates, in community centers and neighbors' doorsteps. That's where my mother built it. That's where we're carrying it forward. And that's where the next generation will make it last.
Learn more about IYAP's peacebuilding programs and how you can support youth leadership at iyap.global/lk and hear from our volunteers :
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