What We Do
Peaceful Schools International works with schools around the world to help them become more peaceful places. We do this by working directly with our member schools, and by organizing events and taking on international projects that promote peace education. We also provide a range of different services available to any school.
Some of the specific projects we are working on right now include a peace camp offered to students during school breaks and work with schools in Sierra Leone and Pakistan.
Pakistan Project
This two-year project was made possible by a generous grant from the United States Institute of peace (USIP).
Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi is increasingly rife with ethnic and sectarian violence. Endemic violence affects youth in particular, as they learn to use hostile action as the principal way to resolve conflict. Education plays a primary role in the attitudinal development of youth, but Karachi schools have yet to teach Pakistani youth how to effectively handle and mitigate local conflict.
Reflecting the Institute’s commitment to utilizing cost-effective approaches to empower others with knowledge, skills and resources that promote the peaceful resolution of conflict, USIP supports Pakistani nonprofit organizations working to provide students with the ability to manage conflict and generate conditions that engender peace. With the support of USIP, Peaceful Schools International (PSI) is working on education programs in 25 Karachi schools that will equip students with the knowledge and skills required to reject violence and resolve conflict peacefully. PSI is also creating a supplementary school project that linksstudents in Pakistan and Canada to encourage cross-cultural communication and understanding.
Over the past two years, more than 390 teachers and 100 administrators and policymakers have attended PSI’s peace education workshops. The workshops provide an interactive opportunity for participants to understand the tenets of peace education and how peace education is best integrated into classroom curriculum and school activities, while using a training-of-trainers model to prompt participants to share their emerging knowledge and skills with colleagues. Additionally, parent workshops are underway that feature an overview of the peace education initiatives being conducted in their children’s schools, as well as positive discipline strategies for use outside of the classroom.
PSI has already felt the impact of their work through the interest it has generated in the target communities. PSI is ramping up their partnership with the Sindh governmental Education Office to expand peace education to schools throughout the province and has introduced peace education to the Memon Education Board that administers 143 local schools.
PSI has also shared their peace education course and teaching methods with other organizations working in Pakistan, such as CARE International and the Zareef Khan Foundation (ZKF). Care International will initiate peace education at 16 schools in Swat District and ZKF is training teachers working in Peshawar. A Peaceful Schools Guidebook is being produced to serve as the basis for future peace education courses in Pakistan.
While the immediate effects of peace education are evident in students’ improved behavior, USIP and PSI are providing youth in Pakistan with a deeper behavioral foundation that ultimately encourages nonviolent conflict resolution and contributes to a more peaceful society in the long term.
******************************************************************************************************
A handbook for schools in Pakistan was written for this project. Creating A Culture of Peace: A Practical Guide for Schools contains ideas and activties that are culturally appropriate for schools in Pakistan. The ideas were tested in the pilot schools that particpated in this project.
You can download the book in English Creating a Culture of Peace: A Practical Guide for Schools April 2012
or Urdu.
What is peace education?
PSI defines peace education simply as “learning to live well together”. We also use the definition of peace education from UNICEF:
“the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to bring about the behavior changes that will enable children, youth and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create conditions conducive to peace, whether at a personal, interpersonal, inter-group, national, or international level.”
Peace in Action
The responsibility for creating a global culture of peace is far too lofty a goal for educators alone. We can, however, strive to create and sustain a culture of peace within our schools. To do so, we must teach peace. It cannot be achieved by means of a simple recipe or by wishing for it anymore than we can achieve it by writing tough policies or merely mandating it.
There are basic principles inherent in the belief that it is necessary to equip children and youth with the attitudes, knowledge and skills essential to the prevention and resolution of conflict. Every student has the right to feel safe in school. The prevention of conflict and the peaceful resolution of conflict can be taught and should be taught.
There are currently many books and other resource materials available that contain innovative, practical lessons in cooperation, respecting differences, communicating effectively, expressing emotions in a positive manner and resolving conflict creatively and non-violently. No single book or program will meet everyone’s needs. When there is a variety of resources made available in the school, teachers will be free to use those that are relevant to the needs of their students, being aware that their needs will vary from year to year.
In some schools and school districts, peace education has been incorporated into curricular activities. Social studies, health and language arts are some of the subject areas that are conducive to such integration. In other schools and school districts, peace education activities are introduced in an extracurricular manner. For example, many schools host Peace Festivals, invite guest speakers and hold assemblies with a focus on peace. How peace education occurs is not as important as that it occurs.
What is a peaceful school?
A peaceful school is one in which students, staff and parents work together to ensure that everyone feels safe, valued, and respected. Based on responses from educators, students and parents, PSI sees six essential ingredients in creating a peaceful school:
- Schools use a collaborative approach to decision making and develop a climate of cooperation, support and understanding. For example, students, parents and teachers are all involved in developing a school’s discipline policy.
- Schools provide curricular and/or extracurricular peace education initiatives. For example, schools might host a peace festival where they share their experiences of peace with parents and the community.
- Teaching methods stress participation, cooperation, problem solving and respect for differences. Students are encouraged to be open minded and accepting of others who may look different, have different customs or hold beliefs that do not correspond with their own.
- Student and community centered conflict resolution strategies such as peer mediation are available.
- The school is involved in community service projects. For example, students may pick up litter in their neighbourhood, fundraise for a specific cause or group, or collect food and clothing to donate.
- Opportunities for professional development on creating a positive school climate are available to all staff. This may include training in areas such as crisis response, dealing with bullying, peer mediation, anti-racism or anti-sexism programs, or cooperative learning strategies.