This article was originally published by The Express Tribune.

Accountability Lab has launched a training programme on peace incubator social entrepreneurship and innovation at Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Agriculture (MNSUA).

Under the programme, 50 students have been selected in first phase while 25 students will be selected in  the second phase for training.

Started as a pilot project, the two organisations will engage and train at least three cohorts of 25 students each and at least 10 faculty members in helping them build the skills for innovation, creativity, and social entrepreneurship around peace promotion and conflict mitigation.

The broader concept behind the incubator is to orient the students about importance of promotion of a peace oriented ecosystem in the society and the ways to do so.

It will also expose them to the larger socioeconomic benefits of a thriving peace ecology that is a pre-requisite for a society’s welfare and betterment.

The peace incubator is expected to culminate in conception and implementation of creative peace actions implemented within the premises of the university but with a focus on creating an environment that is open to accepting diversity, that celebrates social, ethnic, racial, and religious heterogeneity, and that has a wider staying power for its fundamental social norms and values.

Speaking at the launch ceremony, Accountability Lab country director for the programme Fayyaz Yasin said that the mind of a student was just like a seed whose proper care and nurturing could produce a blooming and shady tree.

He said if we had to prepare our students for combating future challenges, we will have to develop creative approach in them.

MNSUA Vice Chancellor Dr Asif Ali said the varsity would offer education on modern and scientific lines to inculcate creative thinking in students.

He informed the participants that the objective behind this idea was to make students useful citizens.

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