| Posted: Mar. 29 2005,07:19 |
If you wrote this report, you will find a button here that you may click
in order to make changes in the report. 
|
PROGRESS: Has your organization seen
progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence in your domain of
action and in your constituency during the first half of the Decade? |
"Thank you. We did not believe you in the beginning when we first met, but now we do." Ramazan Qyra, teacher, Gramsh, Albania.
"By
being part of the project, we are able to search for better ways to
build a society on the principles of tolerance, peace, justice, that
are essential in our lives." Ina Idrizi, secondary school pupil,
Gramsh, Albania.
The Albanian peace and disarmament education
project has been a transformative for all involved. Both the products
and the process have been instrumental in this change. After two years
we have seen both the teacher and the youth peace education manual have
been published; our hardworking teachers and youth leaders have been
certified nationally; peace and disarmament education has been
incorporated at the national curricula of cross and extra-curricular
activities; and the peace education agenda has been pushed at the
Balkan level of peace-building through our involvement in a regional
conflict prevention process. At the same time we recognize that peace
education has just begun its journey in Albania and it will take a long
time for it to be firmly established in spirit and in practice in all
classrooms in Albania.
What are indicators for evaluation and sustainability?
The
teachers' certification helps toward sustaining peace education in
Albania after the end of the UN and Hague Appeal for Peace "Peace and
Disarmament Education Project". These teachers will be local resource
for the Center for Peace and Disarmament Education in Albania that
takes over when the UN / HAP project ends. The ministry of Education
and Science in Albania and the Institute for Pedagogical Studies will
also utilize these teachers for further trainings in peace education in
Albania. The certificate that these 8 teachers have received gives them
the authority to be trainers of peace education at the local
level-schools, communities, etc.
For the past two years of involvement in the peace education project, these teachers have fulfilled the following criteria:
1)
knowledge aptitude in the fields of human security,
conflict resolution, human rights, peace and tolerance.
2)
Aptitudes on how to include peace education in curricula
through the cross and extracurricular activities. These teachers are
authors of many activities, and some of them are published at the
Albanian teachers' manual on "toward a culture of peace".
3)
Aptitudes for the methodology of peace education. These
teachers have been trained intensively through interactive techniques
and methodologies that are the foundation of peace education, and have
used these methods in their teaching. The teachers have their own files
with their work where they use this methodology.
4)
Training aptitude that is related to training that they
have done in four directions where ISP works with trainers: a) needs
assessment of the teacher for the training and its evaluation; b)
programming trainings in peace education; c) developing training in
peace education workshops, and d) evaluation of the training.
Their
certification also sustains the changes in the official curricula,
where the peace education is one of the essential elements of cross and
extracurricular activities in the schools. The certification of these
teachers will help facilitate the training process of other teachers in
various districts in Albania. On the other hand, the schools where
these teachers are, can be called pilot schools of peace education, and
these trainers can use their environment to train other teachers.
On
a regional level, our project helped push peace education to the top of
the Balkan Agenda for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding. Together
with Nansen Dialogue Network and Bulgarian School of Politics, the
Albanian Peace and Disarmament Education Project was one of the
organizers of the Balkan conference on Conflict Prevention. Out of the
eight key themes, peace education was the most important one. Peace
education was the workshop with the highest number of participants-20
of them-and the highest number of national recommendations-67 of them.
In the Balkan Agenda for Conflict Prevention, peace education comes
first in the list of ten recommendations for the international and
national actors.
An independent evaluation of our project that compares baseline to final phase results claims that there is:
" An increased awareness on the dangerous impact of weapons on the community.
" A higher appreciation of peaceful conflict resolution skills amongst students.
" Increased confidence and skills in using peaceful conflict resolution skills.
" More emphasis on cooperation with people from different religions and regions.
" Increased awareness of the gender dimension of violence.
" Increased skills and optimism to lower crime and violence in the community.
In
order to improve accountability in all level in a country with little
trust, we encouraged the schools to propose little projects of their
own in the field of peace and disarmament education and we provide the
resources for it. To facilitate it and to make the opportunities as
open as possible, we have created a mini-project application form
through which the pupils, teachers, or any constituency that we work
with can apply. We have also trained the main groups we work with in
project application and implementation. This way we insure horizontal
and participatory approach to our peace education, and prevent dominant
individuals from usurping the process.
The independent
evaluation also reported that an unintended positive outcome of this
project has been the improvement of student's articulation both written
and oral through involvement in project activities such as project
writing. A considerable number of students collaborated together
and wrote projects that they later implemented themselves. In
this way they gained precious life skills in writing up and presenting
concrete projects.
Another unintended consequence was the
support for small infrastructure in our communities. Understanding that
while working on peace education programming, we needed to address
partly the poverty and the lack of materials, we have contributed
financial support to the community centers in Gramsh, that organized
non-formal educational activities for more than 2000 participants. We
also supported schools in Gramsh and Shkodra by contributing computers,
sports materials and helping improve green spaces.
We have
learned that the quality of the relationship we have formed with the
teachers, pupils and educators is the best indicator of whether the
activities are going to be successful. Relationship seem to be at least
as important as institutionalization in Albania, since people generally
tend to distrust a stranger or institution. Openness and trust are hard
to get in post-communist Albania nowadays, but they have been key
ingredients in our success. We have been open to collaborating with
teachers, pupils, and other NGOs and by now we have full trust in each
other. Work and partnership become easier this way. We have also
learned that despite the systematic treatment of pupils as
passive learners in the Albanian education system, when pupils
participate in activities of their own, they take charge and do an
incredible job. The power and energy of such youth is very motivating
to the whole project crew, albeit sometimes perceived as dangerous by
some of the traditional teachers.
In conclusion, the Albanian
peace and disarmament education project has had a transformation effect
to all its participants. The pupils, teachers, community leaders, and
the worked group grew to trust and work with each other in peace. The
published materials and the incorporation of peace education in
national curricula are probably as important as the fostering of such
relationships. We hope that such projects will be replicated and
adapted in all member states of the United Nations.
|
OBSTACLES: What are the most important obstacles that have prevented progress?
|
Albania
is one of the poorest countries in Europe. It was awash with illegal
weapons after the civil unrest of 1997 leaving nearly one illegal
weapon per 15 people. It is a post-communist society that is going
through a problematic transition into a market economy. Its traits are:
a) weak civil society, b) weak governance: the state does not fulfill
its responsibilities towards citizens particularly pertaining to
infrastructure; c) high economic insecurity because of unemployment -
around 15 % - few safety nets, and marginalization of a large
percentage of the population; d) high human insecurity resulting from
deprivation in both economic and social spheres and e) high emigration
rate - with one out of four Albanians leaving the country during the
past decade.
This is the context in which we have worked.
We
also have faced significant challenges in the implementation of the
project.. Some of these included: a culture of impunity and
authoritarianism in education and politics, widespread poverty,
unstable political and economic situation, lack of motivation of
education actors, small human resource pool. A culture of impunity was
created in post-communist Albania, where it is considered normal for
the people in power to steal and almost none has been punished because
of that. We had to temporarily stop working inside one school because
the one of our local partners was not trustworthy. The problem of
accountability is huge in any project, unfortunately. You have to rely
on good and honest partners in order to do the work.
On
challenges in a systematic level, poverty and social exclusion has also
been rising in Albania. During the last year of the project, there had
been an increase in the government controlled prices of energy and
fixed telephone and bread. Many people lost hope in Albania and our
state, and did not have a vested interest to do something good. Most
young people that we would meet in Gramsh and Shkodra wanted to go
abroad looking for a better life. It was hard to build something
sustainable if the people you work with want to leave the country.
|
ACTIONS: What actions have been
undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the first half of the Decade?
|
Why peace education in Albania?
Following
a successful physical disarmament project conducted by the UN in
cooperation with the Albanian government, the need for sustainable
disarmament strategies arose as the social fabric had been punctured by
weapon-related instability. A unique partnership was formed between the
UN Department for Disarmament Affairs (UNDDA) and the Hague Appeal for
Peace (HAP)-an international NGO that works in promoting peace
education globally-to engender peace and disarmament education programs
in four countries where recent disarmament efforts had occurred:
Albania, Peru, Niger, and Cambodia. Local partners in peace education
were chosen in each country in order to develop programs fostering
disarmament of the minds of youth and children.
The UNDDA/ HAP
partnership implemented peace and disarmament education in Albania in
the districts of Gramsh and Shkodra over the period starting February
1, 2003 until February 1, 2005. The implementation followed a needs
assessment that started with the visit of Hague Appeal for Peace and
United Nations representatives in Gramsh and Shkodra, and continued
with the formation of the working group in Tirana, Gramsh and Shkodra.
This working group fostered the necessary relationships through
conversations and contacts with schools, municipalities, and
educational directories. The values inherent in our programming were:
tolerance, openness, participation, compassion, human rights,
children's rights, human dignity, empowerment, interdependence,
and community involvement.
The UNDDA/HAP project was guided
by the idea that physical disarmament must be complemented and
sustained by a mental disarmament process within communities. According
to the recent UN study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education
(A/57/124, pg. 1),
The overall purpose of disarmament and
non-proliferation education is to impart knowledge and skills to
empower individuals to make their contribution, as national and world
citizens, to the achievement of general and complete disarmament under
effective international control.
Also, according to the Final
Document of the World Congress on Disarmament Education (UNESCO 1980)
relating to pedagogical objectives:
Disarmament education should
apply the most imaginative educational methods, particularly those of
participatory learning, geared to each cultural and social situation
and level of education. It aims at teaching how to think about
disarmament, rather than what to think about it.
The project
utilized a participatory approach, since the community must own it in
order to be more successful. In this participatory approach, the
project differed from top-down development projects that treat local
communities as passive beneficiaries. Instead, we promoted the view
that people become active agents of change in their communities. The
community helped in the design and implementation of the project. The
UNDDA/HAP team provided guidance for the working groups, along with
professional expertise and financial resources to the project.
Developing a peace education initiative with community involvement from
the outset kept the focus on the collaborative and cooperative values
of peace making, while not reproducing traditional community-based
models that oppress other members of the society, like women, children
and ethnic minorities. Complementing the community's efforts,
meaningful partnerships were explored with other actors, such as
UNESCO, UNDP, and local NGOs that have similar goals and objectives.
The principals underlying this project have therefore been the following:
* Community participation is essential in need assessment and project implementation
* Communities have pockets of peacemaking and peace-building that should be affirmed and relied upon
* The best international experience of peace education should be brought to local communities
*
The developed Albanian peace education experiences could later be
replicated or adapted in national and international settings
* Peace education should be an integral part of national and international curricula
*
Peace education should include a disarmament of the mind that sustains
the removal of weapons in the communities affected by violence
What are the implementation results?
The
Albanian project has had many accomplishments in both process and
results. More than 8000 participants have taken part in our peace and
disarmament education activities in Albania, that included debating,
senate, sports, excursions and culture. In our peace education
trainings, we had 260 participants in more than 50 local and national
trainings in Gramsh and Shkodra that included 3 summer schools. In
addition, eight of our local teachers have been certified by Institute
for Pedagogical Studies (ISP) as local trainers in peace education, and
five pupils have become youth trainers. ISP is the national institute
responsible for pre-university education curricula and training under
the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Albania.
Albanian
project has also published materials of peace education. We have
translated an international HAP Manual "Learning to Abolish War" into
Albanian, and have produced a teacher's manual, a youth manual, three
booklets, and more than 20 school newspapers. Our project website,
www.cpde.net, and our newly produced CD-Rom shares all our materials in
both English and Albanian. We have also contributed a chapter to an ISP
publication on extra/ cross curricular activities.
By now,
peace and disarmament education has become official part of the
national curricula for cross and extra -curricular activities.
Extracurricular activities are done or happening outside the normal
curriculum of a school, while cross curricular activities involve two
or more subjects simultaneously. According to Albanian law at least
twenty percent of national curricula for pre-university education have
to be cross and extracurricular. Since this is a new law, few teachers
are trained to teach through cross and extra-curricular. Since many of
the activities in our project's teacher manual were these types of
activities, a peace education chapter became part of national manual of
ISP that will be used by teachers all over Albania.
While
peace education was part of the National Educational Standard already,
there was no concrete implementation of peace education in our schools.
Our project filled this gap through its programming and now our
activities are part of the national curricular materials. In order to
assure sustainability of peace education in Albania, we have created a
Center for Peace and Disarmament Education (www.cpde.net) that will
build upon the successes of the project.
In cooperation with
the Institute for Pedagogical Studies (ISP), the Center for Peace and
Disarmament Education in Albania (CPDE), has done the final training
for eight teachers in Gramsh and Shkodra. These teachers have
participated in several peace education trainings during the past two
years and have written peace education activities for the teachers'
manual "Toward a culture of peace." Now, they have been certified as
national trainers in peace education by ISP and CPDE.
What are samples of activities run by schools, and communities?
These
activities were developed by schools and communities in cooperation
with the project working group, after the initial trainings in peace
education. They were normally designed by teachers, pupils, and
community leaders, who submitted the idea to the working group as a
mini-project application. After the selection, the designers of the
activities implemented them locally.
"Tradition of Tolerance in Gramsh"
The
project promoted traditional behaviors and patterns that will be the
seed for the development of a tolerant peace-loving community. In
Gramsh we had the strong partnership of the Cultural Center. Drawing
upon the tradition of tolerance in Gramsh, the Cultural Center headed
by poet Leidi Shqiponja, developed a program that celebrated the values
of respect, tolerance, diversity, forgiveness through poetry, folk
theatrical games, singing, and through televised interviews of
prominent national figures. The program also included an artistic
contest with drawings, poetry and essays for youth. The final
performance was a show that was televised by local televisions and an
artistic exposition with the best drawings, poetry and essays that
stayed open at the Cultural Center for a month.
What I Wished To Change to in My Life Activities
As
part of our community-based peace education programming, the Children's
Center in Gramsh organized a district-wide event for children during in
2004 that had the following activities:
1) A
contest with folk songs, dance, instruments in 7 regions of the Gramsh
district-including the town and all the major villages-and the
selection of the best performances for the final spectacle.
2) A drawing, painting competition with the theme "What I wished to Change".
3)
An artistic spectacle in the Children's Center
titled What I wished to change that included the selected texts, songs,
dances, and instruments from the 7 regions of the district.
4)
An exposition with the best children's drawings
from the district has been open and can be seen at the Children's
Center.
"With Women We can Make it"
The Women's NGO in
Gramsh headed by the former mayor of Gramsh, Luljeta Dollani, organized
an activity in the International Day of March, March 8th, 2004 to
celebrate the women leaders in the Gramsh community. In a powerful
event, 12 important women leaders from the community discussed on the
stage of the Palace of Culture about the important contribution of
women in education, politics, disarmament, social services and other
important areas. 400 women from the community were part of this event
that was televised in local TV as well.
Peace education stands against blood feud violence in Northern Albania
In
northern Albania where the state is weaker than in other parts, blood
feuds are sometimes considered to be the traditional way to solve
murders. The teachers and pupils of "Jordan Misja" school organized an
activity titled "A different day" with the orphan kids whose family has
been decimated because of the blood feuds in northern Albania. Each kid
became friends "buddies" with a "Jordan Misja" pupil who has been
participating in our peace education activities. Teachers and pupils of
Jordan Misja school also organized a series of activities titled
"Missionaries of peace" during which teachers and pupils held meetings
with community peacemakers who work to prevent blood feuds, police
representatives and judges. Some teachers and pupils in Shkodra have
organized visits to the families that have been affected by blood
feuds. These visits were filmed and showed in classes in order to
promote discussions on the causes and prevention of blood feuds in the
region.
"Bridging social-cultural differences" was a series
of activities in Shkodra school that organized excursions between
countryside pupils and town pupils that fostered a community in the
school. The differences are huge in a town as Shkodra where the
countryside newcomers live in virtual slums rife with blood feuds and
unemployment.
A folk festival was organized in Shkodra in
June, that celebrated musical diversity in Northen Albania while
emphasizing the tradition of tolerance in Shkodra, Dukagjin and Malesia
e Madhe. Five major schools participated in this event that was covered
widely by local media.
Some Shkodra pupils and teachers also
initiated a series of events to celebrate living Shkodra artists and
writers. These artists have contributed a lot to the community during
their active years and now are retired. Because of the difficult times
in Shkodra, they feel neglected and forgotten. The pupils gave symbolic
gifts to the artists, and invited them to the school to share their
work.
"Culture and Peace" sports activities were organized
by our Shkodra teachers in November and December for 8 high schools in
Shkodra to promote fair play and cooperation between schools.
Activities included games of soccer, and basketball.
As part
of a series on Environment related activities Shkodra teacher trainers
organized a seminar on "Ecology and conflict" with geography teachers
from 7 high schools in Shkodra. The seminar focused on how
environmental degradation can be a potential cause for local and
international conflicts.
Traditional dances at the Gramsh dormitory fest
Shkodra Poetry and Pictures for a Peaceful World
Debate Group in Gramsh discussing weapons and security
|
ADVICE: What advice would you like to
give to the Secretary-General and the General Assembly to promote a
culture of peace and nonviolence during the second half of the Decade? |
In
conclusion, the Albanian peace and disarmament education project has
had a transformation effect to all its participants. The pupils,
teachers, community leaders, and the worked group grew to trust and
work with each other in peace. The published materials and the
incorporation of peace education in national curricula are probably as
important as the fostering of such relationships. We hope that such
projects will be replicated and adapted in all member states of the
United Nations.
|
PARTNERSHIPS: What partnerships and
networks does your organization participate in, thus strengthening the
global movement for a culture of peace? |
Why the focus on partnership?
The
UNDDA/ HAP partnership helped us initially to start the process of
peace education programming at the community level. Later on, it
provided the crucial support for securing the funding for the
implementation of the project. Our international partnership has also
provided initial legitimacy to our work at the national and district
level. It was easier to go the UNDP-Albania, Ministry of Education, and
districts' educational directorates through the connection to the UN
and HAP.
The working group in Albania worked a lot to sustain
the good initial reputation and to foster relationships in the ground.
Apart from the local allies in the Gramsh and Shkodra districts, we
relied upon the national resources of the Institute for Pedagogical
Studies, Foundation for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation,
Movement for Disarmament and the Women's Center.
One of the
challenges and opportunities of being in the UNDDA / HAP partnership is
that there were few written rules on how to go about in this project.
Initially, we had the challenge of funding delay that frustrated some
of our local partners. We had received the commitment for the funding
of the project, but no transfer occurred for around six months. When
the funding arrived, we had to be inventive about creating a working
framework. Yet, in Albania we knew we could rely on the UNDDA / HAP
partners for guidance in both organizational and curricular issues.
Trust and openness to new ideas were some of the best
components of the DDA/ HAP partnership. It allowed local partners to
take the necessary risks and shift activities in order to achieve the
overall goals in a better way. For example, in the last quarter
of the project, in Albania we faced the opportunity of publishing cross
and extracurricular activities into the national curricula, and also
certifying teachers as national trainers in peace education. We had not
anticipated these line items, yet they were very important. We
discussed this with the DDA/HAP headquarters and they encouraged us to
work with these new possibilities and go ahead with publishing and
teacher certification.
Being part of an international project
has contributed to a cosmopolitan vision of peace education in Albania.
Throughout our meetings and email exchanges, we would hear about the
accomplishments and challenges of the projects in Peru, Cambodia and
Niger, and we would know we were not alone. It was inspiring to hear
the cooperative sports games that EDUCA has been implementing in Peru,
or the peace education campaigns in Niger and Cambodia.
We
were also happy to have a good access to professional and technical
resources outside the Albania project. Through our meetings and
conferences, we have enlarged our networks and had even more access to
various resources. In our office in Albania we have more than 20
education books of peace, disarmament, human security, conflict
resolution from the USA, Latin America, West Africa, and so on. We
could find many materials online as well. We were local and global at
the same time. This has made our work-for pupils, teachers,
coordinators and educators-even more exciting. We are thankful for the
opportunity to engage in such an interesting project.
|
PLANS: What new engagements are
planned by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence in the second half of the Decade (2005-2010)? |
|
Postal address of organization
|
Peace and Disarmament Education Project,
PO BOX 236/1, Tirana, Albania
|
E-mail address of organization
|
info@cpde.net
|
Website address of organization
|
http://www.cpde.net
|
Highest priority action domain of a culture of peace
|
Education for a culture of peace
|
Second priority action domain of a culture of peace
|
|
Highest priority country of action (or international)
|
Albania
|
Second priority country of action (or international)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
