articles
Reports on the Hague Appeal's Global Campaign for Peace Education
IIPE 2000,Pune India.-
By Dr.Betty Reardon, as given in the Peace Matters of September 2000
The last few months have been active and constructive in the Campaign's drive to carry out its first phase under the guidance of a Global Advisory Group representing all world regions. While all the group has not been in one place at one time, various occasions have afforded opportunities for discussion and planning among several members participating in the same event. These events focussed on peace education, each moving the campaign forward, have taken place in New York; Tokyo; Bablos, Lebanon;Tronso,Norway; Paris;Pune, India and Tampere, Finland.
The campaign activity being undertaken by the Hague Appeal for Peace office in New York was discussed and plans were made during a February visit by Prof. Alicia Cabezudo, advisory group member from Latin America. Prof Cabezudo participated with Dr. Betty Reardon, Academic coordinator of the Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE) in introducing the campaign to graduate students at Columbia University in a course on the theory and evolution of Peace Education. Some of these peace education students will be working with Cabezudo and Reardon as they design a manual on a comprehensive, developmental approach peace education for elementary and secondary schools. The manual is one of the projects Prof. Cabezudo is undertaking during her term as Educator in Residence for 2000-2001.They will be joined in this work during the first semester by Dr. Loreto Castro of Miriam College in the Philippines and during the second by Prof. Magnus Haavelsrud, advisory group member from Europe , who holds a chair in education at Trondheim University, Norway. All of the Campaign's endeavor are being pursued in transnational and cross cultural contexts.
Prof.Haavelsrud, Dr. Reardon and Dr. Catherine Odora Hoppers , advisory group member for Africa , were able to meet for informal exchange during their participation in the International conference on Peace in Higher Education at Tromso University, Norway in May. Also in May, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Hague conference, during a teach in at the UNICEF headquarters, Colin Archer who is managing informational aspects of the campaign from IPB in Geneva along with Cabezudo and Reardon led a discussion group on Peace Education. Dr.Reardon introduced the Campaign aid at a conference she addressed at the Lebanese University in April and enlisted someone to start work in that region as part of the planning for the 2001 International institute on Peace Education (IIPE).
IIPE, founded at Teacher college, Columbia University in 1982 has become an activity of the campaign. It takes place in a different part of the world each year. This year it was held at Mahindra United World College near Pune, India involving 55 full time residential participants from Bangladesh,India, Ivory Coast,Jordan and the United States. The program of plenary sessions (in the first of these plenaried, Lalita Ramdas, Asian advisory group member and Admiral Ramu Ramdass focussed on the abolition of war) were on the theme of "education for a culture of Peace: A Human Security Perspective." Workshops offering practical approached to peace education and field trips to explore issues of justice , peace and environment in the Pune area were enthusiastically received by the participants , many of who are planning to come with colleagues to IIPE 2001.
The Campaign was publicly introduced to Indian audiences in a press conference by Armene Modi, director of Ashta No Kai, an Indian Japanese NGO working on women's literacy and self sufficiency and Dr. Betty Reardon , founder and director of IIPE and at a public forum that attracted over 200 to hear Reardon and Vandana Shiva. The Ramdas, Modi and Shiva were among a number of Hague Appeal for Peace civil society conference alumni who participated in the institute. One of the workshops was conducted by the graduates of Delhi University inspired by the Hague conference to found the League in Friendship Endeavour, a dynamic peace education project that has gained the support of the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India where much of the activity is centered. This and other endeavour presented in the workshop will be able to expand and disseminate their approaches through the formation of an Indian National committee for the GCPE as a follow up to IIPE 2000.Preliminary discussions on the formation of a Japanese National Committee initiated by Dr.Betty Reardon when she spoke in June, will be continued during September visit to Japan.
Two other international events also provided a platform from which to reach new audiences of educators and participants in global civil society. Cora Weiss spoke to the final plenary of the 2000 biennial conference of International educators for Peace in Paris, in July, inspiring this organization and the many teachers union members in attendance from all over the world to become actively involved in the Campaign .Her presentations to this final session and a previous round table were supported and followed up by Colin Archer and Alicia Cabezudo, who also participated in the Congress.
Archer and Reardon were able to introduce the Campaign into the discussions of the general conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) in Tampere, Finland in august. Reardon used the Campaign as the centerpiece of her plenary talk on "The Interface Between Peace and Research, Education and Activism". The Peace Education Commission of the IPRA comprises of a group of experienced and active peace educators whom we expect will become as active as have PEC member Azril Bacal of Peru and Sweden.
The measure of the actual success of these events will be found in the ongoing institutionalization of peace education in the schools and in teacher preparation. Campaign activist will be following up on all the opportunities they have opened to assure as much actual change on the grounds of formal and informal education as we can possibly achieve in the places we reach. We hope the readers of Peace Matter will us in these efforts.
[Dr.Betty Reardon is the Academic Co-ordinator of the Hague Appeal Global Campaign for Peace Education, and has been a professor of Peace Education at Teacher College ,Columbia University, USA.]