Thanks to the financial support of the project “Ethics of Peace: Youth visions”( 2023/2024) by the Swedish Institute (SI), Ukrainian youth (representatives of YMCA- Ukraine and students of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute) and partners from YMCA public organizations as well as the international student community from Sweden, Armenia, and the USA thoroughly studied the mechanisms of peacebuilding and gained access to newest methods and tools for youth social engagement.

In Ukraine four training cycles were held among the youth in Kyiv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr. Participants received knowledge, skills, and competencies that reveal and develop their potential in critical thinking, conflict prevention, and dialogue. They also participated in online sessions with youth leaders, researchers, and experts on peace, security, intercultural dialogue, ethics of peace, and critical thinking. Participants gained skills in the field of conflict resolution, intercultural communication, peacebuilding and mediation, critical thinking, including abilities to identify and neutralize the elements of hybrid warfare, including disinformation, fakes, and propaganda. During the project implementation issues of peace ethics, ideas of human development and prosperity were considered within a single conceptual framework.
As a result of the project, methodological materials for workshops and trainings on the formation of critical thinking, fact-checking and countering fakes, conflict resolution and mediation for a youth audience of different age groups (14-16 and 17-20 years old) were elaborated.
Identification and analysis of stress- and conflict-generating factors that negatively affect the lives of young people under martial law were carried out. In addition, coping strategies and methods for overcoming stressful situations in the conditions of a full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine were developed, including cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of coping.

The role of youth as a key agent of peace-making was highlighted. In youth environment the values of human development, democracy, self-expression, peace, and respect for others are being most actively formed. Practical recommendations were prepared for civil society organizations to overcome negative and passive attitudes of young people and to involve youth segments in the processes of peace-making and post-war reconstruction of the country. Based on the results of the project, a strategy of the formation and cultivation of peace ethics in the youth environment will be developed.

The project participants and organisers have prepared a new expanded application to the Swedish Institute for the next project so that the ideas developed in this project can be implemented and disseminated in their communities.