An international peace education conference was held in Rwanda from July 11-13 to discuss and reflect on the most effective approaches to address conflicts, promote human well-being, and achieve sustainable peace.
Representatives of CSOs in Rwanda were trained by the Aegis Trust on how to positively encourage men and boys to enhance gender equality.
A three-day Youth Champions workshop on Peace and Values Education was held by Aegis at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in the first week of February, bringing together 25 young people from Kigali and its surroundings. They acquired knowledge about the path to violence, the path to peace, advocacy, being an upstander, leadership, project development, gender equality, trauma and healing.
This study explores how, during its implementation, the curriculum peace content has faced challenges linked with the content itself, its implementers and the environment in which it has to evolve.
Those with prior experiences of collective fear, especially survivors of genocide in Rwanda, can be triggered by the current corona crisis. Jean Pierre Ndagijimana offers trauma-informed responses for dealing with prior experiences of collective fear in the present moment.
Realizing the need in Rwanda for conflict resolution and peace education training, three colleagues formed Critical Thinking for P.E.A.C.E, a program which brings Rwandan youth together for programmes promoting peace, sustainability, social cohesion, empathy, and cultural celebration and preservation.
In a three-day training organized by AEGIS Trust and the Educators Institute for Human Rights, secondary school teachers were trained on genocide studies.
About 100 primary and secondary school teachers completed a two-week training on applying arts, theater and drama in education and improvement of the new Rwanda education curriculum. The teachers noted that the training equipped them with skills in solving conflicts.
After realizing many school curricula contained genocidal ideology and discrimination that led to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, the education ministry and schools have moved to scale up curricula with books and programs on peace and genocide.
The Aegis Trust and the Rwanda Education Board officially launched the Ubumuntu Digital Platform, an innovative new online peace education platform.
In Rwanda, pre-1994 formal education became a tool for inciting violence. In the 23 years since the genocide, the Rwandan government has propagated education that promotes national unity and decreases division amongst students. The 2015 national competence-based curriculum that incorporates Education for a Culture of Peace, is one pertinent example.
Educators from 11 African countries have expressed commitment to ensure that young Africans are well educated about peace and values the continent needs. A delegation of 15 Jesuit Education Directors made their pledge after concluding a three-day workshop at Peace School at Kigali Genocide Memorial.