Build and attend peace

Infopack: [pdf]

Project summary: Many types of conflicts exist in Europe ranging from social tensions, community conflicts to ethnic and identity-based violent conflict in Eastern Europe, namely in Ukraine and the South Caucasus.
To aid communities and individuals affected by these conflicts, peace education – defined as a holistic, multidisciplinary and transformative process to develop competences in nonviolent conflict transformation, respect for human rights and active participation – is one approach of peace-building measures that aims at strengthening nonviolence and participatory means of conflict transformation to ensure human rights protection, nonviolence and participation as fundamental principles of societal life allowing young people to not only grow up in a peaceful environment without their personal development potentials being jeopardised but also to contribute conflicts to be addressed nonviolently without making use of direct, structural and cultural violence.
Against this background, the project proposal aims to strengthen the competences of youth workers and youth educators in peace education for young people in order to empower young people to become pro-active agents of peaceful change via local community initiatives
addressing societal conflicts.
Therefore, the youth workers and youth educators will participate in two e-learning modules and two training courses in Georgia and Hungary on conflict transformation, peace education, and training delivery. As a result, the participants shall be enabled to design, implement and evaluate their own training courses and workshops on peace education for young people in their communities.
Thus, the following objectives have been created in view to the overall aim of the project:
• To qualify new peace educators in planning, delivering and evaluating educational programmes on peace education for young people
• To create new educational materials and activities for peace education programmes for young people
• To trigger transnational partnerships on peace education among youth organizations
The chosen approach of this educational proposal is based on the experiences of a Grundtvig Learning Partnership on mainstreaming peace education and a KA2 project where a competences framework on peace education in the youth field was developed.

Methods: The methods employed in the training course will be non-formal, participatory-based and needs to be orientated. The facilitators will use exercises amongst others from European training manuals such as Compass, T-Kit and Domino Pack developed by Council of Europe and/ or the European Commission. Additionally, other methods will be used from the trainers’ repertoire and their own toolkits.

Involved countries: The project involves all in all 24 youth workers and youth educators from Hungary, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Poland, Finland. Two training courses compose the project. Training courses are held in Lagodekhi, Georgia, and Budapest, Hungary, and last for 7 days each.

The project aims at the following results:
• Competence development in peacebuilding and conflict transformation
• Competence development in conducting peace education programmes for young people
• Creation of new educational materials and activities for peace education programmes for young people
• Creation of learning partnerships between the involved partner organizations which translate in follow-up projects on peace education in the youth field
• Direct actions on peace education in the communities of the sending organizations

Participants’ profile: The course is addressed at professional or voluntary youth educators and peace educators working regularly in NGOs, social movements or initiatives and that already have an understanding of peacebuilding, peace education, and youth work, but would like to deepen their conceptual understanding and improve their professional competences for their work with young people on conflict transformation and change processes by means of peace education. The course contains two trainings and an e-learing programme. Successful applicants will have to participate in both programmes.
The youth workers chosen for the activity will have to show:
• Knowledge of the situation of young people in the own country and of the specific conflict context for young people
• At least basic knowledge and understanding of approaches to peace-building, specifically in the field of youth work
• Work experience in an NGO working with young people by educational means
• Have led at least 1 local or international educational programme (youth exchange, workshop, etc.) for young people on peace education, civic education or human rights education
• Motivation to take part in a mutual learning process in a highly intercultural setting
• Good level of English