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Our Mission Our Goals Organizational Background Regional Focus Our Strategies
In today’s wars, civilian populations are the main casualties and all
too often, children are the soldier of choice. Child soldiering will not
end until wars and genocides are prevented.
This is because once wars start, they take on a life of their own and
rage out of control like a forest fire.
To end wars, war must be prevented.
To prevent wars and genocides, a culture of peace must be built, a
culture of peace in which people from both the same and different groups
exist and want to exist in harmony.
A culture of peace exists when people no longer resort to violence as a
response to conflict or fear.
A culture of peace exists when cycles of revenge are replaced with
processes of reconciliation.
Peace must be linked to economic development, sustainable livelihoods,
education, health, empowerment of women and environmental management.
Peace will not sustain itself in a vacuum. There can be no lasting peace
without development and no sustainable development without lasting
peace.
To build a culture of peace, peace education, as one of multiple
strategies, must be systemically mainstreamed into the education system
with components that emanate to the family and community.
School-based peace education ideally starts in early primary school
grades, continues through secondary school and provides ongoing
opportunities for practice.
Women, and the perspectives of women, should play defining roles in
structuring and implementing school-based peace education programs.
Becoming skilled in the practices of violence prevention, mediation,
mediative capacity, relationship building, and cultural reconciliation
processes are critical to building a culture of peace. School-based
peace education and student-centered peace activities are essential
components of building a sustainable culture of peace.
Peace education in secondary schools is particularly important so that
students become lifelong peacebuilding practitioners. Secondary school
is where adolescents become young adults. Secondary school students have
visions of their communities and society, their core values are being
shaped, they have influence among their peers, in their families and
communities, are preparing for higher education and career and setting
their sights on their role in the world. Secondary school students are
stakeholders in peace, and shepherds of the next generation.
All children and youth are unequivocally entitled to secondary and
tertiary education. A full regimen of education is particularly
important for children and youth affected by conflict to ensure a secure
future, as a means of social reintegration, as a component of
rehabilitation and as a means to contribute to family, community and
society.
Children and youth, in their school-based study of peace, should learn
about traditional, cultural, and ancestral mechanisms and processes of
peace, violence prevention, mediation and reconciliation, as well as
culturally contextual contemporary tools of peace building, such as
conflict resolution.
School-based Guidance and Counseling Programs should provide guidance
and psychosocial counseling services, and group guidance/life skills
classes and teachings. These programs should be linked and coordinated
with the Ministry of Education and Sports Guidance and Counseling Unit.
Peace education programs designed to build a culture of peace to prevent
new wars, and build peaceful schools and communities, should have
systemic implications, and be sustainable.
Our Mission Our Goals Organizational Background Regional Focus Our Strategies
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