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Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation: Celebrating Diversity for Peace and Solidarity
15 October, 2016 @ 8:00 am - 28 October, 2016 @ 5:00 pm
Deadline of Applications: 15 September 2016
The world is culturally, ethnically, and politically diverse and pluralistic. It has a rich history of diverse communities living together in harmony; of spirituality alongside secularism; of compassion and fairness; of understanding and tolerance; of hospitality and caring. This would not have been possible without people’s tireless and galactic engagement in the non-violent struggle for social justice and peace.
However, much of the world has also been the scene of prolific and endemic violent conflicts; from small to large-scale; brief but brutal as well as long and almost perpetual. Many regimes in either democratic or authoritarian have been lawless, venal and corrupt; servile and docile to hegemonic superpowers; multinational and national corporations who place profit over everything else; and to the proponents of exploitative economic globalization, from Bretton Woods to Davos. It is against this backdrop that integrated peace education and peacebuilding has been conceived with the goal of promoting a culture of peace.
To be able to live in peace is blessing for humanity. Peaceful life and relationship is a quest for the common people. Human being draws inspiration from tradition, culture, faith and individualism which makes it important to understand the historical and cultural contexts of peace and appreciate the failed efforts of the past and many practical compromises that have to be made in any negotiation that lead to peace.
Education is an effort to bring necessary reform from within and help strengthen their capability to engage with other faith communities and other agents of development in dialogue and joint action for the mutual good of mankind. Advocacy influences policy change in the political, economic and social dimensions of any society towards the eradication of illiteracy, social inequality, and poverty that have bred passivity, indifference and apathy.
Peace education is seen as a potential venue for collective self-reflection, self-actualization and human and social development. As such, its two-pronged thrust is sustainability and empowerment. Peace education logically should start from family, community and formal schools. The program strives to embed sustainability in the building of local resources and capacities, innovative but always wary of technology transfer and modernizing by adopting only that which is essential to human and social development.
It is also empowering as it has an end of ultimately enabling and developing self-reliance among the communities. It aims at equipping communities at a grassroots level, especially those involved in education-for- development with knowledge, information and skills to deconstruct their situation, to re-appreciate local history and culture and relate the same to the general situation and history of diverse peoples so that a universal framework and history may be evolved.
The pedagogical mission of Peace Education is the movement from a culture of distrust and violence toward a culture of mutual trust and peace. This course offers space for interfaith inter-cultural orientation, gender perspective and respect for differences of opinion and helps to develop a common ground for collective peace actions.
