May 2016

Peace Education Curriculum for Afghan students

/ Activity Reports, Policy

Help the Afghan Children’s Peace Education Curriculum is the first formal school-based model to specifically target vulnerable middle-school and high-school students, encouraging them to reject violence and all forms of aggressive behavior while embracing the principles of peaceful living, respect for diversity, and cooperation.

Originally introduced in 2003 to three schools, the model has spread to 62 schools in five provinces, impacting over 86,000 boys and girls. Results from these schools over the past three years have shown a dramatic reduction in fighting, consistent improvement in classroom and schoolyard behavior, and similar reductions in teachers’ use of corporal punishment. In 2012, recognizing its potential to impact millions of students, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education endorsed HTAC’s initiative to expand into other regions of the country.

Education Is the Key to Breaking the Cycle of Violence

/ Opinion

In this opinion article published at TIMES Ideas, Forest Whitaker and Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO argue that education must rise on the agenda of peace building, and to unlock education’s potential to nurture peace, we must support inclusive education systems that reach out to all groups and that teach human rights and new forms of global citizenship. We need to get this right to allow societies to escape the nightmares of history, to give young people every chance.

No more excuses. Provide education to all forcibly displaced people

/ News & Highlights, Research

This paper, jointly released by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Global Education Monitoring Report in advance of the World Humanitarian Summit, shows that the education rights of forcibly displaced populations are being neglected on a large scale. It calls for countries and their humanitarian and development partners to urgently ensure that internally displaced, asylum seeking and refugee children and youth are included in national education plans, and collect better data to monitor their situation.

Teachers: Agents of Peace Building in the Conflict Zones

/ Opinion

Dr. Swaleha Sindhi suggests that in conflict-affected situations education is about more than service delivery; it is a means of socialization and identity development through the transmission of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes across generations. Education may therefore be a way of contributing to conflict transformation and building peace.

Restorative Justice takes hold in San Diego schools

/ News & Highlights

Restorative Practices is taking hold in a number of San Diego Unified schools and its aim is to change the culture on campus by giving students more of a voice in their day-to-day lives at school. Under the districts restorative approach, which was adopted in 2014, educators now have more discretion in whether to suspend or expel students for bad behavior. Depending on each individual case, learning can come from “talking it out” in carefully facilitated circle sessions run by highly trained mediators.

Successes and Challenges in Development Education and Youth Work in Egypt. Cumulative Impact and Needs Assessment Report

/ Research

PATRIR and its 4E team has just released the cumulative impact and needs assessment (CINA) report entitled “Successes and Challenges in Development Education and Youth Work in Egypt”. The report is the output of a 5-months long assessment process implemented in the frame of the project “Technical Assistance for Development and Civic Education in Egypt” (4E), which was implemented by the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR) between October 2015 – February 2016.

A Silent National Crisis: Violence Against Teachers

/ News & Highlights, Research

We know a lot about the phenomenon of school violence and how to recognize, mitigate and prevent it. This slideshow, research and brochure developed by the American Psychological Association is based on the assumption that school violence may be related to teacher victimization. The knowledge is framed in the form of questions that reflect different levels of prevention and intervention.

Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping Database

/ Research

The Mir Centre for Peace at Selkirk College has created a global data base to collect and describe all Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping (UCP) operations since 1990. This data base represents a starting point to try to capture a comprehensive picture into UCP activity.

Teach equality in India’s classrooms to end discrimination, says activist

/ News & Highlights

Efforts to combat discrimination against India’s lower castes, religious minorities and women must begin in the classroom, with children holding the key to ending deep-rooted prejudices, a human rights campaigner said. According to the Amnesty International’s annual report for 2015-16, gender and caste based discrimination and violence has “remained pervasive” in India, with increasing censorship and attacks on freedom of expression over the last year. “Equality has to be taught in classrooms. We have to invest in fostering values of human rights,” lawyer and human rights activist Henri Tiphagne told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Rethinking scholarships as a force for social justice

/ News & Highlights, Policy

The Ford Foundation is promoting fellowships designed to support access to higher education and to advance social justice. Unlike traditional scholarship programs based primarily on academic achievement, social justice fellowships use non-traditional ways to recruit talented individuals already working toward positive change in their communities. The premise is simple: that extending higher education opportunities to leaders from marginalized communities helps further social justice in some of the world’s poorest and most unequal countries.

John Lewis’ Graphic Novel to Be Taught in NYC Public Schools

/ News & Highlights, Publications

MARCH is a graphic novel trilogy that tells the first-hand account of Congressman John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights. As a part of the New York City Department of Education’s “Passport to Social Studies” curriculum, 8th-grade teachers will now be able to use MARCH as a tool to teach students about the Civil Rights Movement.

“I am deeply moved that New York City Public Schools are adding MARCH to the Social Studies curriculum. This is a major step to ensuring every young person receives the best possible education about Nonviolence and the Civil Rights Movement,” Lewis wrote on Facebook.

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