Mission
The world is at crisis point, where conflict, violence and war is becoming the only way we seem to be able to solve problems. The most vulnerable people are now forced to flee the violence and their homes and place all their hopes into an unknown, liminal future in refugee camps.
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With refugee camps such as Zataari becoming increasingly overpopulated and under resourced it is important that we do as much as we can to help provide positive and sustainable outcomes for these most vulnerable people. The fact that these people are forced to ‘live’ so marginally and with such little opportunity enforces the structural violence that they fled to begin with.
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According to Montessori, the key to peace is through education (Duckworth, 2013). Firstly, how do we define peace?
“Peace is a dynamic balance involving political, social, cultural and technological factors, and war occurs when this balance breaks down in the international system” (Groff, 2002, p.7)
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The purpose for this Peace Education program is to educate and advocate for intercultural and holistic peace (Groff, 2002). Intercultural peace is achieved when there is peace within diverse cultural, racial, ethnic groups around the world. (Groff, 2002). The program aims to help children view difference in a positive light, to teach positive peaceful conflict resolution and to embrace diversity.
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Holistic peace is “peace with the world and the environment. This view sees Earth as a complex living system, requiring peace between people on all levels of analysis, from individual and family to global cultural levels” (Groff, 2002, p.8). A person must first understand peace at their own level and then this spreads out into family, community and global levels.
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This Peace Education program recognises that children in refugee camps are extremely vulnerable and many have come from traumatic experiences. The heavy themes and ideas of Peace Education, such as equity, social justice, gender roles, racism and conflict resolution are explored by the children through art. This method provides a non-threatening self-expression outlet for the children to translate their learning. The program also recognises the therapeutic benefits that the arts can have for these children.
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The immediate goal for the program is to educate children how the future is in their hands and that a change in the way the world embraces diversity and resolves conflict can lead to a more peaceful global community. By starting with children, the message of peace education hopes to create a ripple effect to their immediate communities and then spread to wider community levels.
Vision
The vision for this peace education initiative is that it will be able to help the children of Zataari Refugee Camp to think more critically about the way they live in this world.
The initiative hopes that these children will learn more sustainable and peaceful ways to engage with others, to embrace and celebrate diversity of culture, race and religion.
Ultimately, the goal is to enact a change in the way people deal with conflict so that people exist more peacefully. As children are our future generation, they are the best place to start this change!
Groff, L. (2002). A holistic view of peace education. Social Alternatives, 21(1), 7-10. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.acu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6cbb96b5-86ce-45be-9533-a9790eee7537%40sessionmgr102&vid=1&hid=115
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Duckworth, C, (2006). Teaching peace: a dialogue on the Montessori method. Journal of Peace Education, 3(1), 39-53. Doi: 10.1080/17400200500532128