| Posted: April 14 2005,12:56 |
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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? |
There is progress since year 2000
*through formulation of an operative peace concept: "Care for Myself - Care for Others - Care for Nature",
*through spread of a manual to schools in 70 countries,
*by
inspiring 400 schools to perform well above 2000 peace actions reported
to the Life-Link interactive website. One of actions is named:
"From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace/Care". The
peace actions involve students, teachers, parents and community
officials.
A more detailed description of Progress:
Life-Link
in 1998 invited schools world-wide to propose short-time peace actions
that could be performed at and around their schools. The result was
1500 proposals from 179 schools in 55 countries. These 1500 proposals,
many overlapping, are since year 2000 fused and edited into a manual
including 60 peace actions, each action with concrete guidelines on
Theory, Activities to be performed, and Step by Step preparations.
One of the proposed peace actions is named: From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace/Care (Life-Link action No 2:01)
A summary of the Life-Link programme is enclosed to this report.
Definition of PEACE. The Ethics of Care for Myself - Care for Others - Care for Nature
Part
of the Life-Link Friendship-Schools progress facing the Culture of
Peace decade has been to formulate a clear and useful definition of
"Peace".
1. Peace must be taken to the level, the perspective and responsibility of each individual.
2. Peace is basically a question of constructive and caring relations and behaviours.
3. Relations and behaviours can be discussed and executed on three levels: how I relate and behave
towards Myself
towards Others
towards Nature
4. Peace includes the ethics of Care in the double sense of
a) to engage, to bother, to take an interest
b) to look after, to preserve, to heal (health care.)
5. Promotion of a Culture of peace requires skills in project management: Lets get Organised.
Language of "Pro-" instead of "Anti-" or "Non-".
Life-Link
has made efforts to formulate our program with proposed peace actions
into Pro-actions, thus advancing the cognitions in favour of solutions
rather than to be stuck in protesting and "Non-" formulations. This has
an important theoretical base in behavioural psychology - the human
mind favours positive pictures and "visions". A message of
"Non-Violence" will thus by the brain rather be visualised as
"Violence". As an example: Life-Link proposes Constructive
Collaboration instead of Conflict Resolution.
Almost 400 schools in more than 60 countries use the Life-Link programme.
Slowly
increasing in number, nearly 400 schools in 60 countries all continents
today use the Life-Link Friendship-Schools Programme and manual for
peace education. Classes perform short-time peace actions inspired by
the 60 proposed "peace actions" and then report to the Life-Link
website. More than 2000 peace actions have been reported since year
2000.
www.life-link.org a useful and inspiring website
The
Life-Link website includes the Life-Link programme and manual, peace
action reports from schools several with photos (Schools &
Actions), Conference reports, A chapter on Project Management, some
references on organisations and other peace programmes. The
webmaster is a brilliant young man from Romania 20 years old!
Collaboration with Ministries of Education
Life-Link,
although a Non-Governmental Organisation, has made progress in contacts
and collaboration with Governmental Organisations like Ministries of
Education and Ministries of Youth.
The Life-Link ethics and
working manual in English language is now translated into Russian and
Arabic in collaboration with governmental departments, and into Spanish
in collaboration with a community department in Argentina.
International conferences now in strategic countries and regions.
Eleven
international Life-Link conferences since 1989 have given feed-back to
the Life-Link programme. The first nine conferences took place in
Sweden, conference No X took place in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, and
conference XI took place in Moscow, Russia. The conference No XII will
take place in Alexandria, Egypt November 2005. Conference No XIII is
planned for Amman, Jordan, and an offer to hold a future conference has
been given from Iran. China will be approached for a future conference.
Visa costs for Life-Link exchange programmes
Life-Link
exchange programmes between Sweden and Russia as well as Sweden
and Ukraine are today free from visa costs, thanks to informal
agreements.
Evaluation document
An evaluation of the
Life-Link programme 1987-2004 has been performed "LIFE-LINK
Friendship-Schools Report of activities and developments since 1987"
(45 pages A5 size)
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OBSTACLES: What are the most important obstacles that have prevented progress?
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Teachers time and credits for working with schools’ international programmes.
Teachers
that are in contact with the Life-Link programme have told us that they
have little time within their official working hours to engage and
promote peace and international programmes. Nor have they any
official credit while engaging in such work. On the contrary, they
confess that there is scarce interest from the other teachers at their
schools to know and to learn about peace education experiences like the
Life-Link campaigns or the Life-Link conferences.
Language training
The
Life-Link programme was initially limited to British English language
in order to be an extra tool for participating schools language
training and cross curricular collaboration at the schools. We have
learnt that certain cultures still need their own language in order to
make the Life-Link programme available for the big majority of schools.
The Life-Link manual with peace actions guidelines has thus in
collaboration with educational institutes been translated into Russian,
Spanish and Arabic languages.
The young Life-Link webmaster from
Romania has also constructed a programme available on the Life-Link
website, making it possible to produce more translations.
Financing & Budgets
Life-Link,
as most voluntary peace programmes, works with financial and staff
restrictions, and on a "year to year" budget. It is still not possible
to ask participating schools for any compulsory fees, such a demand
would exclude most of participating schools and youth. Each
participating school pays for their own expenditures while performing
local peace actions or travel expenditures to Life-Link conferences.
Information Technology and communication facilities
Access
to computers and Internet is still an obstacle in developing countries,
even though we experience promising progress during the recent years.
Need of Project Management skills
Life-Link
stresses the importance of good Project Management skills during
planning and performance of proposed short "peace actions" at and
around schools. Life-Link offers a special chapter within the Manual
Guidelines and on the website on this topic. Specially proposed peace
actions in favour of Project Management training are introduced within
the Life-Link fourth theme: Lets Get Organised. Life-Link still
recognizes a need for project management training at many participating
schools.
Logical and/or Emotional approach to a Culture of Peace?
Promotion
of a Culture of Peace probably needs more of emotional efforts, and
also more learning from the psychology connected to processes of
change. A rehabilitation process and successful campaigns need a
combination of
* Facts/Knowledge,
* Emotion/Inspiration,
* Planning/Project management,
* Resources.
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ACTIONS: What actions have been
undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the first half of the Decade?
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ACTIONS, PHOTOS, CERTIFICATES.
Life-Link Friendship-Schools coordinating office in Uppsala Sweden:
The
Life-Link programme operates in a decentralised manner, with an
international office in Uppsala Sweden, and activities taking place at
schools world-wide.
The office works mainly with voluntary 1-2
people staff, plus one paid part time secretary. The schools do not
receive any financial support from Life-Link Sweden, but performs the
peace actions either as part of their school curriculum, or fundraising
locally for extracurricular actions.
International conferences
International
conferences gather small school delegations from the most active
Life-Link schools in order to report and discuss peace actions and to
make the programme and campaigns better.
Participating Schools’ actions
This
is the core activity of the Life-Link programme, short-time ("2-hours")
peace actions tanking place at and around schools. "Learning by doing"
and "Act Locally and think Globally" are well-known slogans that
fit well with the Life-Link Peace actions.
Photos from performed peace actions are added to the reports on www.life-link.org
Schools performing and reporting on a minimum of four peace actions per year receives a Cartificate.
International
conferences gather students, educators and lecturers for a one week
schools reporting, planning and intercultural experience
Students
have an important influence on the Life-Link programme and campaigns:
Constructive collaboration! Building the future! Let´s do it!
Teachers and educators gathering at Life-Link annual international conferences discuss the Life-Link Peace Education pedagogics.
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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? |
The
Life-Link international conference 1997 resulted in a statement with
the following nine conclusions (C) and recommendations (R) , still
valid year 2005 for a United Nations approach to a Culture of Peace:
Education
C) Education is fundamental in any society and R) must be given the highest priority.
UNESCO recommendation
C)
The conference endorses the UNESCO Recommendation on International
Education 1974, revised in Geneva 1994. R) Education must
include vital topics like Human Rights, Democracy, Environment and
Sustainability.
Youth engagement
C) The success of
School-Twinning and School-Networking programmes across borders depends
on students and teachers working together in equal partnership. R)
Young people should be given every opportunity to empower themselves
through initiating, creating and running youth projects.
Encouragement of teachers
C)
Teachers are crucial in order to promote and support the youth
activities. R) Teachers at each school should be given time and
necessary facilities as well as encouragement and professional support
in order to successfully accomplish this mission.
School-Twinning and School-Networking
C)
School-Twinning is when youth and teachers at schools in different
countries or regions decide to created a partner-schools relation.
School-Networking is when several schools cooperate around common
concerns or in a common campaign. A partner-schools programme will
stimulate youth contacts across borders, leading to increased
self-esteem and understanding of others points of view. Such a
programme will also promote intercultural learning in a "global
classroom", community interaction and responsibility and reverence for
Life on Earth. R) Youth communication and cooperation through
school-twinning and schools-networking should be actively encouraged in
every school. We recommend that Education Ministry policy supports the
concept of School-Twinning and School-Networking, and also the
activities of the Non Governmental Organisations associated with
education.
Projects and Campaigns
C) Partner-Schools and
School-Networks need concrete projects and campaigns. R) Each school
should run at least one project or participate in one global
cross-border campaign every year.
Vital Issues for our common future
C)
Education aiming at increased global understanding, including
school-networking around vital issues for our common future, has an
increasingly important role for individual and global security.
R) We thus recommend, also for this reason, that mandate is given
to schools to introduce school-networking into the schools curriculum.
Information and Communication Technology
C)
Improved information and communication technology equipment is
beneficial in international school-networking. We stress that human
communication and conflict resolution skills can be enhanced by
technological innovation. R) It is the responsibility of
countries’ educational departments, the international
community and of each school to introduce technical devices and the
necessary skills at the schools.
Ethics: Caring and Sharing
C)
"Caring and Sharing" has been a major topic of discussion at this
conference. We see this as the ethical core of these conclusions and
recommendations. R) We recommend such an ethical base for the
partner-schools and school-networks programmes.
Some other advices and proposals from the Life-Link programme
Ambassadors for a Culture of Peace at schools world-wide
United
Nations should promote a programme including official ambassadors for
the promotion of a culture of peace at schools world-wide. Personal
contacts and visits at schools are crucial for motivation among
teachers and principals and pupils.
Campaign for the Abolition of War
A
campaign should be initiated in order to bring Ware-fare to an
historical end. Schools world-wide could be the starting point for such
a campaign. The Life-Link ethics and structure fits very well for an
immediate starting of such an historical campaing.
Conference on Peace Education and School-Networking
We
recommend that UN or UNESCO invite organisations working for
school-networking to a conference in order to promote collaboration and
synergy.
Olympic Truce at schools
We recommend that the
Olympic Truce programme should be active at all schools world-wide.
Life-Link has experiences in the field of Sport and Peace that can be
used for such a campaign.
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PARTNERSHIPS: What partnerships and
networks does your organization participate in, thus strengthening the
global movement for a culture of peace? |
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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)? |
Seeking partner-ship
Life-Link
has developed a programme with high quality. We will now look for
partnership in order to give the programme a wider spread.
Special regions and countries
The Life-Link programme will year 2005-2006 focus on schools within the countries with Arabic culture.
Consolidation of ongoing programme
The Life-Link programme needs consolidation in several countries, and updating on proposed actions.
Life-Link programme in countries with a policy in favour of weapons of mass destruction
Special
efforts should be given to spread School-Networking in countries still
building their "security" on the concept of weapons of mass
destruction.
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Postal address of organization
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Life-Link Friendship-Schools Association
Uppsala Science Park, SE 75183 Uppsala, Sweden
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E-mail address of organization
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hans.levander@life-link.org
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Website address of organization
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www.life-link.org
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Highest priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Life-Link
programme is a Peace Education Programme operating through peace
actions within the themes of Care for Myself, Care for Others and Care
for Nature.
Within the proposed peace actions we actually cover
all Culture of Peace domains: Gender perspectives, Democracy,
Sustainable biology and social structures, Human Rights (the Rights of
the Child), Intercultural understanding and solidarity, Flow of
information and free searching of knowledge, International Peace and
Security = Common security, "New security thinking". Life-Link also
promotes Human Responsibilities - Global Citizenship.
The
Life-Link approach to the Culture of Peace domains is through the eyes
of an individual youth or teacher or parent: how can I as an
individual behave in a sustainable manner towards myself? towards
others? towards Nature?
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Second priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Highest priority country of action (or international)
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INTERNATIONAL
Schools
in more than 60 countries all continents use the Life-Link programme.
Some schools are very active, others semi-active in reporting, and some
schools might use the programme but with low reporting. Life-Link
working with limited staff has to make priorities in promotion, such as
regions in post-war situation (Balkan Iraq), regions in democratic
development (Eastern Europe).
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Second priority country of action (or international)
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