International Forum on Education for Non-Violence

Colóquio "Educação para a Não Violência"

Sintra, Portugal, 20 - 22 May 1996

Organizado conjuntamente pela UNESCO
e pela Fundação PRO-DIGNITATE

1. The Forum was a joint initiative undertaken by UNESCO and PRO-DIGNITATE Fundaçao de Direitos Humanos with a view to mobilizing educational authorities, teachers, students and all possible partners of education to create a culture of peace and non-violence in educational institutions.

2. The Forum was held in Sintra, the site of the UNESCO World Heritage List, under the presidency of Mrs Mafia Barroso Soares, the President of PRO-DIGNITATE. The Director-General of UNESCO was represented by Mr Colin Power, Assistant Director-General for Education, accompanied by three UNESCO staff members.

3. The opening session was addressed by Mrs Maria Barroso Soares, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Justice on behalf of the Prime Minister, the Mayor of Sintra and Mr Power on behalf of the Director-General of UNESCO. The closing session was addressed by Mrs Maria Barroso Soares, the Secretary of State of Cooperation on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Nelson Lourenço the Co-ordinator of the forum and Ms Kaisa Savolainen on behalf of UNESCO.

4. The Forum's themes (ANNEX I) were discussed by thirty-three participants from 17 countries representing, all regions of the world (ANNEX II).

5. The objectives of the Forum were twofold: to consider the range of problems involved in the creation of a culture of peace and non-violence in educational institutions and to launch the Interregional Project included in the UNESCO Programme and Budget for 1996-1997 (document 28C/5, paragraphs 05211 and 05216).

6. The project responds to the call for innovative actions for peace education in the context of the new UNESCO transdisciplinary programme for a culture of peace. It also responds to the call of the Second International Forum for a Culture of Peace, held in Manila, Philippines, in November 1995, for new efforts at peace education, including teacher training, curricula, and pilot projects in communities confronted with violence.

7. In preparation for the Forum, a study was commissioned from the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution. The study, summarized in ANNEX III, identified school-based programmes contributing to community conflict resolution in countries around the world and presented case studies from Australia, Japan, US, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Norway and France. It also surveyed the methodologies used by these programmes. The head of the Center, social psychologist Morton Deutsch, also took part in the Forum.

8. The UNESCO Associated Schools Project (ASP) was closely involved in every step of the preparation of this Forum. The participants from Thailand, Jordan and Senegal were chosen to help ensure the close linkage of this project to the ASP. The Project will also be linked closely to UNESCO National Culture of Peace Programmes. The Programmes in El Salvador, Mozambique and Burundi were involved in the Forum preparation, and the Burundi Programme was also represented at the Forum.

9. The Forum emphasized the urgent necessity for educators, students, parents, community administrators, mass media, scientific and cultural institutions, business enterprises, trade unions and other sectors of society to contribute to the creation of a culture of peace and non-violence in educational institutions.

10. Participants discussed many innovative projects dealing with the various aspects of education for non-violence, including among others those carried out by the following institutions:

• the Cours Sainte-Marie de Hann, a school in Senegal which won the 1992 UNESCO Peace Education Prize and which includes students of 48 nationalities;
• the Rinkeby borough of Stockholm (Sweden) including schools in a poor area of the city and including over 80 nationalities;
• the Blackstonedge School for school dropouts in Jamaica;
• the schools linked in the Instituto Equatorial de Cultura Contemporanea (Brazil);
• the school programmes for disadvantaged youth in Lima, Peru associated with the Institute Fé y Alegría;
• the School of Education at the University of Natal working to reduce violence in schools in South Africa;
• International Conflict Resolution Centre in Australia and International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution in the United States;
• pilot projects in conjunction with a new initiative by the Ministry of Education in Portugal to target 30 schools in violence-prone areas (10 in Lisbon, 10 in Porto and 10 elsewhere in the country).

11. As shown in detail in the guidelines adopted by the participants (ANNEX IV), recommendations were made for the Project in terms of networking, pilot projects, partnerships, training, curriculum, research/evaluation, funding, general promotion/advocacy, and dissemination of information and results.

12. Specific actions were requested of UNESCO in terms of project coordination, fund-raising, recognition of projects, integration with other UNESCO activities, further conceptual development, and promotion of national policies favouring culture of peace and non-violence in educational institutions. Details may be found in ANNEX IV.

The opening and closing sessions will be at Palácio da Vila. All the other sessions will take place at the second floor of the hotel.

THEMES OF PANEL DISCUSSIONS

A) What is a culture of Peace in schools?

1. The role of school "ethos" or "climate"; organization of work in schools and classrooms; participation of students and teachers in decisions about school procedures and policies; relationships among pupils, parents, teachers and staff'?
2. Contributions of teacher training and support, educational materials (e.g. teaching of history), training for mediation and conflict resolution, co-operative teaching/learning methods?

B) Who are the partners that can help implement it?

1. Co-operation with other institutions, including political (e.g. local and city authorities), communication (e.g. mass media), economic (e.g. business and trade unions), and educational (e.g. universities)?

C) How can schools contribute to culture of peace in the surrounding community?

1. In a violent urban communities, contribution of schools to a culture of peace, including programmes to address negative factors such as drugs, unemployment, etc.
2. In multi-ethnic societies, including war-torn societies engaged in post-conflict peace-building, contribution of schools to development of a culture of peace?

D) Guidelines for interregional project: Culture of Peace in Educational Institutions, including pilot projects.

Examples of School-Based Programs Involving Peaceful Conflict Resolution and
Mediation Oriented to Overcoming Community Violence

Ying Ying (Joanne) Lim and Morton Deutsch
International Center for Co-operation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR)
Teachers College, Columbia University, USA

Summary

In response to a request from UNESCO, ICCCR prepared a study to identify in different parts of the world examples of approaches to overcome violence in urban communities through school-based programmes involving peaceful conflict resolution and mediation. A questionnaire was prepared and sent to an extensive list of over 200 knowledgable individuals and organizations from Europe, Asia/Pacific, North America, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Arab States.

Judging from the early results, school based programmes of conflict resolution are mostly developed in the United States and Canada, where, in response to a significant increase in violence among youth, there was a rapid upsurge in the last decade. There are a number of high quality training Centres and several thousand school programmes. A similar upsurge now appears to be starting for similar reasons in other areas of the world. In Europe a number of Centres have emerged recently and in 1990 a European Network for Conflict Resolution in Education was formed. In Australia and in Israel there are a number of well-developed Centres and school programmes. Little data was forthcoming, however, for Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, Arab States and Africa, with the exception of South Africa where there are several very active conflict resolution centres. The report includes full case studies of eight programmes (from Australia, Japan, US, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Norway and France) as well as data drawn from 22 other programmes. It is expected that the study will be expanded in order to add and analyse other data which are still arriving.

Staff and available funding vary considerably in the programmes surveyed, and most feel that they must be constantly fund-raising to maintain their services. Although in a few cases, programmes serve up to several hundred schools, most programmes serve ten or less, and often service a wide range of student ages, including both primary and secondary schools. In the typical programme, a subset of the students and teachers are involved, rather than everyone in the school.

Most of the training involves educators and staff as well as students, and in many cases students are involved in the training of other students. All of the programmes use role-playing and most also use real conflicts, games, group discussion and demonstrations in their training. Although the amount of training varied widely, the modal number of trainees in a group was between 15-20, the amount of training time was typically from 1-3 days, the number of trainers usually 1-2, and most often training occurred at the school.

There is considerable evidence from questionnaires and interviews that these programmes are well-regarded by teachers, students, parents and administrators. There is also many anecdotal reports that they reduce violence in schools. In addition, there is a small body of systematic research indicating that students in the programmes develop better social skills, more self-esteem, a greater sense of personal control over their lives and higher academic achievement. However, more research is needed, especially to determine the conditions for the success of programmes and what kinds of programmes are most effective.

International Forum on Education for Non-Violence

Sintra, Portugal, 22 May 1996

Guidelines for a Plan of Action
for UNESCO Interregional Project for Culture of Peace
and Non-violence in Educational Institutions

* * *

Gathered here in the beautiful city of Sintra, thanking UNESCO and the Foundation Pro Dignitate for their initiative and the local and national authorities for their hospitality, recognizing the great need throughout the world today to move together from a culture of war and violence to a culture of peace and non-violence, we the participants in the International Forum on Education for Non-Violence suggest the following guidelines for a plan of action for the UNESCO Interregional Project for Culture of Peace and Non-violence in Educational Institutions.

We dedicate our work to the promotion of a movement from the culture of war and violence which has dominated previous history to a culture of peace and non-violence characterized by values, attitudes and behaviours which privilege the nonviolent solution of conflicts, respect for human rights, democracy, intercultural understanding, tolerance and solidarity. A culture of peace calls for non-violent relations not only between states, but also between individuals, between social groups, between the state and all its citizens and between humans and the environment. Declarations and legal measures are not enough, but a culture of peace must grow out of the beliefs and traditions of the people themselves. While it does not deny the conflicts that arise from diversity, it demands non-violent solutions and promotes the transformation of violent competition through a process of healing and reconciliation into cooperation for shared goals.

Of all the frontiers where the advance to a culture of peace is needed, perhaps the most important in the long term is the development of children. In many places, children have no childhood and no schools, but are thrust directly into factories and farms or even onto the streets. And schools, themselves, often sustain and help reproduce the injustice and violence of society, including both structural and physical violence. Instead of this, schools can be a place where children feel cared for and where they can cultivate the knowledge, values and skills they need in order to create together a future world of justice and solidarity.

UNESCO has taken the lead in promoting peace and non-violence in education from its beginning when it was established to construct peace in the minds of men and women. The relevant principles have been elaborated in such documents as the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Declaration and Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy (1995), and the 1996-2001 Medium-term Strategy of UNESCO emphasizing the building of a culture of peace. These are also reflected in the 1996 report of the UNESCO Commission on Education for the XXI Century.

The student must be at the centre as the main actor in the establishment of a culture of peace and non-violence in schools. For this reason, the primary objective of the school must emphasize not only the traditional goals of the achievement of specific knowledge and skills, but also the development and practice of the social relations which characterize this culture. In fact, studies indicate that students learn best in a caring and cooperative environment. This requires that the education process involve not only students and teachers in an active teaching/learning relationship, but also the entire staff of the school, the parents and the surrounding community as a common and shared endeavour. This should be reinforced at all levels from the classroom to the national educational policy through a process of continuous critical reflection and reform. The principles and practices of peace and non-violence should be integrated into every aspect of curriculum, pedagogy and activities, including the very organizational and decision-making structure of the educational institution. These include cooperative learning, dialogue, intercultural understanding, and mediation and conflict-resolution strategies.

The school is not an island but should be a centre of civic life in the community. It should nurture, through its organization and practice, citizens capable of democratic participation. Recognizing the interdependence of school and community, as part of its mission, the project will also help to address the major sources of structural and overt violence in the community which impact upon the students, such as ethnic or racial discrimination, drugs and unemployment.

Although recognizing that the world today is deeply scarred by the violence of wide disparities and structural inequalities between the North and South among nations and within nations and that this project by itself cannot resolve these issues, we believe that we can make a difference. We are challenged to contribute, by means of this project to action for global justice, reconciliation and international solidarity. As the Mozambican poet Jose Craverinha emphasized and wrote during the Sintra Forum, "it is not that we must be the same, but what is fundamental is that we are together, joined hand in hand."

Não é necessário sermos iguais.
Fundamental é estarmos juntos de mãos dadas

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

1. Networking should be established which:

• facilitates the exchange of information, experiences, strategies among an expanding community of individuals and institutions sharing the goals of the Project;
• provides recognition and mutual encouragement which support the activities of the participants and links their local action to a global movement;
• encourages mutual understanding and learning among cultures and regions, including north and south, rural and urban;
• links with and supports existing UNESCO programmes, such as the Associated Schools Project and national culture of peace programmes;
• links with and supports existing networks, including internet, newsletters, professional associations, and regional networks focusing on education for peace and non-violence;
• facilitates exchanges and meetings of network participants, with an emphasis on regions of the world that have suffered from violent conflict, including regional forums which allow for mutual exchange of ideas and strategies relevant to regional realities.

2. Pilot projects should be established

• promoting education for non-violence and peace on the basis of creative, alternative designs of schooling which are relevant to the needs and realities of the communities and people concerned;
• drawing where possible upon existing resources and ongoing initiatives;
• in diverse educational institutions in cooperation with relevant partners in sections of society, including public, private, etc.;
• employing diverse methodologies and taking into account a diversity of social and cultural contexts, including multi-cultural contexts and in various regions of the world;
• giving a priority to situations of exclusion and violence, such as those in urban ghettos and war-torn societies;
• involving the community and making available the school as a resource to the community for promotion of non-violence and a culture of peace;
• including linkages of schools between North and South countries which promote international solidarity based on principles of intercultural respect and understanding and global justice.

3. As educational institutions cannot accomplish this task alone, partnerships should be established with a wide variety of other institutions including:

• parents and local community organizations to ensure that the project involves and contributes to the culture of peace in the community;
• local, governmental and inter-governmental authorities to ensure their support in terms of financial, human and material resources and security, while allowing the autonomy that is necessary for democratic decision-making practices by the school, including especially the students;
• regional and international associations of mayors, parliamentarians, Ministers of Education;
• local and mass media which should help publicize the activities of the schools so that they are supported by the entire community and can serve as positive role models and should help students develop their capacity for critical evaluation and use of the media;
• artists and cultural institutions which should help make the arts and cultural traditions an integral part of the learning experience;
  · economic institutions, including business and labour, sharing in the goals of the project, which should support and enhance its activities;
• religious institutions and other organizations in the community;
• universities, teacher training institutions and research organizations.

4. Training of teachers, teacher educators, students, administrators and others associated with the school and its surrounding community is an essential aspect of the project

• based on a diversity of appropriate methodologies including those drawing on artistic creative and participatory strategies;
• encompassing on a continuing and sustainable basis, pre-service, in-service and life-long professional development;
• including exchange and development of written and audiovisual materials for training in a variety of contexts.

5. Curriculum development should include:

• texts and other materials promoting non-violence, culture of peace, tolerance and solidarity, human rights, gender equity, active citizenship, and care for the environment;
• integration of principles and strategies of non-violence and culture of peace into all subject areas and disciplines in the curriculum;
• taking into account local realities and traditions within a multi-cultural and international framework.

6. Research and evaluation should be built into all aspects of the project and should:

• provide appropriate and rigorous measures not only of overall effectiveness of actions, but also of specific methodologies and their relation to social and cultural contexts;
• involve the participants in the form of action research;
• further develop an inventory and publicize examples and case studies of best practices, expanding upon the study carried out on this subject by UNESCO and ICCCR.
• systematically draw upon previous research and the experiences of those who are researchers and practitioners in the field, including compilation of the scientific evidence concerning the principles and practices relevant to the project;
• contribute to the sustainability of actions and projects,
• identify resistances encountered and document the process of change, including the way that project participants gain acceptance and establish their activities.

7. Funding should be sought to support the activities of the project:

• from a diversity of sources including governmental, intergovernmental and private agencies;
• by systematic preparation and submission to these agencies project documents with detailed accounts including expected outcomes, activities and timetables of action.

8. General promotion and advocacy for the principles and practices of non-violence and a culture of peace in education should be a constant dimension of project activities, and be directed to:

• students and parents who should be at the centre of the project;
• governments and national and local authorities, including National Commissions for UNESCO as well as Ministers of Education who should be urged to develop programmes of action for the implementation of the Declaration and Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy which they discussed and adopted at the 1994 International Conference of Education.
• all educational institutions, formal and non-formal, public and private and their teachers, administrators and other staff,
• decision-makers and opinion-leaders;
• the general public

9. Information and results of the project:

• should be widely disseminated in order to contribute effectively to a global movement for non-violence and a culture of peace.

ACTIONS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED OF UNESCO

1. Coordination of project activities, including networking, identification, establishment and support of pilot projects, training, production of support materials, curriculum development, research and evaluation, and dissemination of information and results;

2. Facilitation of fund-raising and resource development for the project;

3. Recognition and valorisation of project and network activities which enables participants to be conscious of their local actions as part of a global peace-building mission of UNESCO and the United Nations system;

4. Integration of the project with other UNESCO activities that are complementary such as the Associated Schools Project and the Culture of Peace Programme as well as related activities of other international organizations;

5. Further development of the principles, methodologies and strategies of the project in a long-term process of continuous learning of all those participating in the project, with an emphasis on peoples and regions where it is most needed and in a way that reinforces the global movement toward a culture of peace and non-violence

6. Further promotion of national policies aimed at establishing a culture of peace and nonviolence in educational institutions,

OUR COMMITMENT TO ACTION

In a spirit of mutual support and inspiration, through the actions proposed here and others appropriate to the circumstances in our own schools and communities and in collaboration with UNESCO and others networked around the world, we commit ourselves and the mobilization of our colleagues and institutions to the long-term and continuing process of developing a culture of non-violence and cooperative learning in schools and other educational institutions as an important contribution to a global movement for a culture of peace.