Training on Peace Education

Association for Educational Development EKVALIS implemented the first training on Peace Education from our project “Peace Education for Inclusive Classrooms“ supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. This training was implemented for 20 high school students from the high school “Braka Miladinovci“ in Skopje (Dracevo area) in order to enhance multi ethnic dialogue and cohesion as our group was ethnically diverse. On the first day the participants followed intensive program on team building, team cohesion and getting to know each other which was an introduction to their participation in this training consisted of three workshops and one study visit. At the second part of the workshop, we have discusses and worked with the concepts of culture, diversity, social inclusion and combating prejudices, stereotypes, discrimination and segregation. We had the opportunity to familiarize the students with the European Youth Foundation and the Council of Europe who are funding this project. Many thanks to Aleksandra Dichevska, Advisor for International Cooperation at the Agency of Youth and Sport who introduced the European Youth Foundation and invited the students to a visit at the Agency for Youth and Sports and the school principle Elizabeta Angeleska for wishing us a warm welcome for the beginning of our project. The second day workshops were divided in two parts also. The first part of the workshop involved the students in understanding and practicing the influences of non-verbal and verbal communication towards conflict resolution. Through the usage of frozen image theater, the groups presented three specific examples of physical violence: domestic violence, gender based violence and ethnic based violence and they discussed the reasons of why those events occur and how can they prevent them.Within the second part of the workshop, we have worked with the concepts of gender and the gender representation in media. The groups needed to examine the content in newspapers that represent the gender in a positive or negative perspective. There were different examples detected in relation to the gender representation in media connected to fashion, sports, politics, division of house work and educational opportunities. On day 3, the students participated in a role play exercise called “Power Walk“. They needed to enter a certain role of a person in the society and according to the statements read by the trainers to position themselves in different parts of the school gym. With those positions and statements they afterwards discussed the levels of marginalization and privilege in the society and tried to make correlations. At the last stage of the workshop, the students detected three common problems in the school: physical violence, understanding of the roles of the school psychologists and segregation at the school. For each problem, the groups suggested three actions and created two plans of action for conflicts resolution in Macedonian and Albanian language. The plans of actions will be presented to the other students at the school in the dissemination phase after the training will end. The last working day of the training was organized in a form of study visit outside the school. All students participated on a study visit at the Youth Center “Sakam Da Znam/ I want to Know“.They had the opportunity to learn about the different opportunities that this Center offers such as free services to psychologist, dermatologist, HIV testing or gynecologist. Meri Cvetkovska from HERA talked about the different approaches of how HERA tries to include young people in promoting comprehensive sexual education. We have also discusses some myths the society has about HIV and how violence can be manifested in relationships. Doroti Pachkova from the organisation One Can joined this study visit and introduced our students the single parent forms of families as legitimate forms of families in the Macedonian society. Doroti talked about the challenges single mothers deal with in various aspects, but also how they try to include single fathers in their organisation. Related to the 16 activism days of eliminating violence against women, One Can also presented common examples of how single mothers have previously faced violence and what is being considered as violence in a marriage or relationship. In the upcoming period, the students will disseminate the knowledge gained on this training to their peers at the high school. Currently, they are working on finalizing their presentations for the plan of actions that will be presented next week at the high school. The project “Peace Education for Inclusive Classrooms“ is financially supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. #EYFCOE #EKVALIS #YOUTH #STUDENTS #PEACE #NONFORMAL#EDUCATION Please follow these links to see more pictures from each day of the training: Photos- Day 1    |     Photos - Day 2    |   Photos - Day 3  |  Photos - Day 4