‘Hooked on Peace’ Engages Youth and Storytelling to Promote Indigenous Languages and Cultures

Language is how we express ourselves and connect with others. Every community has its own language, including all ethnic communities, the Deaf community, and Indigenous communities across the globe. In the Asia-Pacific alone, there are more than 3,000 documented languages. Unfortunately, many of them are dying along with their cultures. The ‘Hooked on Peace’ project explores how youth can help promote Indigenous languages and cultures through storytelling.

Indigenous Languages and Cultures

With thousands of languages spoken, Asia is one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. Regrettably, this beautiful diversity is now under threat, with Indigenous languages at the frontline. This is a direct consequence of colonial practices such as land grabs, assimilation policies, and discriminatory laws and actions toward Indigenous peoples. 

Indigenous languages play a role beyond practical communication. They are also repositories of Indigenous peoples’ rich, complex, and extensive values and knowledge with millennia of history. A threat to Indigenous languages is a threat to Indigenous peoples.

In the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 13 states, “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems, and literatures, and to designate and retain their own.”

Hooked on Peace

As globalization continues, it is important to acknowledge how Indigenous youth can be valuable actors in promoting and guarding their own cultures and heritages. Hooked on Peace aims to empower them to do so.  

Hooked on Peace is an intersectoral collaboration by UNESCO, the Asia Foundation, the Asia Indigenous Youth Platform (AIYP), and the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) with support from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This project encourages connection between Indigenous youth and community elders to collaborate and promote Indigenous knowledge and wisdom to answer present-day challenges.

Essentially, Hooked on Peace seeks to promote peacebuilding by fostering intergenerational dialogue through stories and other narrative traditions. It aims to use digital storytelling in the Indigenous languages to promote youth development, mother-tongue education, digital literacy, gender equality, and preservation of Indigenous cultures. 

Masterclasses and More

The ‘Hooked on Peace’ project began in September 2022. It primarily manifests as masterclasses and workshops, training Indigenous youth in South and Southeast Asia in various storytelling methods and techniques. Among them are documentary filmmaking, photo stories, children’s stories, and creative non-fiction.  

These events involve storytelling experts from various organizations, such as the Indigenous Media Network from Thailand, The Asia Foundation from Bangladesh, and Lao New Wave Cinema from Lao PDR. So far, they have happened in person and virtually. 

Language and story are powerful tools for both preservation and advancement. Therefore, empowering Indigenous youth with storytelling skills to contribute to cultural preservation and peacebuilding is essential to sustainable development that leaves no one behind. 

Twisa Tripura, a Hooked on Peace workshop participant from Bangladesh, said, “I am so delighted to be a part of the Hooked on Peace project, as I always endeavor to contribute to my community. Being an Indigenous youth changemaker, I feel a great responsibility to protect and promote our traditional culture and document all the untold stories for our future generations.”

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