Paris, September 5 (N°2001-93) - The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, has decided to award the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education 2001 to the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva (Israel) and to Ugandan Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng. This choice comes with the unanimous recommendation of the international Prize jury that deliberated at UNESCO headquarters on September 3 and 4.

In selecting the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace and Bishop Onono Onweng, the jury sought to highlight “the exceptional efforts of the two winners in the areas of peace education, the promotion of peace and non-violence” and to reward “the work done for the resolution of conflicts through dialogue”.

Begun 20 years ago, the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education aims to promote actions that focus public awareness and mobilise consciences in favour of peace. Created with a donation from The Nippon Foundation, the Prize is awarded with a purse that this year is worth US$30,000. The 2001 Prize-giving ceremony will be held at UNESCO headquarters at 6:00 p.m. on December 14.

Established in 1963, the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva is Israel’s oldest and largest peace education institution. Its main aims are to foster closer relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, to educate for mutual understanding, and to promote partnership and permanent dialogue between the two communities. Each year, around 25,000 people participate in its activities.

Despite the wars and upheavals of the last 38 years, the Center has made, and continues to make, an important contribution to peace through its education and research projects, its conferences and workshops, its library and information centre, and its publications, notably Crossing Borders, an English-language bi-monthly magazine. This magazine, financed by Denmark and the result of work by Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian youths, is one of the rare Israeli-Palestinian projects - maybe the only one - that has kept going in the current difficult climate.

Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng, born in 1945, was a primary school teacher for many years and joined the Ordained Ministry in 1976. He subsequently became a school inspector and the director of the Lweza Training and Conference Centre, and in 1988 he was made Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese. He is the originator of numerous initiatives for peace and for fighting poverty.

Bishop Onono Onweng’s projects include a poverty-alleviation credit scheme he started in 1976, a non-governmental peace organisation called “Jamii Ya Kapatakanisha” created in 1992, and a technical school for orphans of war, the “Gulu Vocational Community Centre”, founded in 1994. In 1998, he also started the “Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiatives” (ARLPI), an inter-faith forum for peace. In 2000, Bishop Onono Onweng received the Uganda Peace Award.

An Honourable Mention was given to Dr Betty Reardon, a U.S. teacher and peace educator who started the International Institute on Peace Education (IPE) in 1982, providing a structure for educators from around the world to meet and share their knowledge and experience. The author of several books, Dr Reardon also launched the Global Campaign for Peace Education, which produced “Learning to Abolish War”, a teaching resource used internationally.

Previous UNESCO Prize for Peace Education-winners include: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sweden), Paulo Freire (Brazil), Brother Roger de Taizé (France), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala), Mother Teresa (India), Prayudh Payutto (Thailand), Chiara Lubich (Italy), and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Argentina).

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