13 teachers from GO! onderwijs van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, an education platform from the Flemish community, were visited by EPTO and PeaceJam Belgium on Monday, 18 November, in Brussels. The group learnt about the “Compassion in Action” curriculum based on “Education, Inspiration and Action” which has been implemented in 20,000 schools in 39 countries over 20 years. Based on the lives of the Nobel Laureates who work with the PeaceJam Foundation, it takes pupils and their school communities on an engaging journey that explores issues such as anti-discrimination, tolerance and non-violent communication from a personal, social, and institutional perspective, builds their skills and understanding, and provides them with insights and lessons from role models of peace from around the world.
Hélène VanLangendonck and Damien Grosjean presented the curriculum which realizes the vision of the EU’s Paris Declaration social inclusion transformation vision, by inspiring young people and changing the context of the communities and schools where young people live and work. The teachers got to try out an activity from the curriculum, based around the work of Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum from Guatemala, who will join the next Youth Leadership Conference in Belgium in March 2020. The group was keen to have a better understanding of the program and about participating in the next PeaceJam training for teachers. (new dates to be announced soon, January/February 2020).
Through the PeaceJam project “Nobel Peace Laureates mentoring youth to build an inclusive Europe” supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, we are working with teachers in communities across the EU who are piloting, evaluating, and adapting the curriculum. Since December 2017, we have been implementing the PeaceJam programme in 54 schools and youth organisations in Europe, working with 152 teachers and youth workers thus reaching 3247 young people.
If you are a teacher and would like to know more about how you can implement the curriculum in your school, please contact Cathy Del Rizzo or Damien Grosjean at EPTO.
In the meantime you can stay up-to-date with PeaceJam Belgium events and trainings by liking and following the facebook page.