Peace education and mediation training in schools should be seen as a resourceful conflict prevention tool rather than merely a post-conflict reconciliation measure. That is my (not so humble) conclusion after, among other things, having heard the Swedish Public Service Radio’s story on how conflicts foreign to Sweden play out in local school corridors, geographically far from military clashes. Another contributing factor to this statement is my recent review of the reconciliation efforts in Kyrgyzstan after the inter-communal violence that occurred in the country in June 2010. Many of the reconciliation and confidence-building initiatives focused on youth participation as a means of building trust between communities, something which to me, made it clear that peace education should be seen as a crucial thread in the conflict prevention fabric, not only as a post-conflict band-aid.
2 Comments
|