PEACE EDUCATION IN INDIA

Greetings to you.

Would like to share with you that 50 select teachers from Schools
and colleges will be Trained as Peace Educators, on 4 May 2004 at Chandigarh,
India. These select Trainers will be Trained and certified as Peace Educators,
to implement the 40 hour Peace Education module, on Peace Building skills.

The Training program for Trainers is at the
Dev Samaj College of Education, Sector 36 B, Chandigarh.

These initiatives follow the declaration of Chandigargh as a Rotary
Peace City., through the initiative of the Rotary Club of
Chandigarh..Punjab-- India...District 3080.

Chandigarh is now the 2nd Rotary Peace city, in India, after Chennai,
in Tamil Nadu India..District 3230. The Rotary Club of Chennai Kilpauk
had initiated Chennai as a Rotary Peace city, followed by Peace Workshops for Schools.

This 40 hour program for implementation in schools has been developed
by The Prashanti International Center for Peace and has been adopted in
Chennai.

During this training program, I can incorporate any kind of joint
initiatives to be implemented with the Educational 40 hour potential
school initiative. Peace education as a module will be implemented in
schools and colleges in Chandigah.

I would like my friends in Rotary to make suggestions on some joint
project possibilities for children. I could put them into the module as
additional international peace projects.

I seek ideas on bringing children and peace efforts together.

Herewith I have put across a few ideas that came to my mind. Please
let me know your views on the same and please add to them and help
arrive at a few initiatives to begin with.

________________________

Children and Trainers who have gone through the Peace building
Training to be called as People for Peace.

To connect all the children together on the internet through a Peace
list like ROTI, where events for children can be announced. Events reported,
and nuggets of learning on peace shared, along with quotes and pieces of information.

Conduct Participative programs of the Brick and portal type,
example- a virtual portal related communications and activities
over the internet that are web based, supported by on the ground
activities at homes and classrooms and
communities--(Brick).

With this Brick and portal or click and Mortar combination we can
involve all the children, without they having to move from where they are,
and build peace from the piece of land where they are.

Examples of initiatives:

PEACE IN MY WORLD --writing competition,

Announce a competition on essay writing in Peace in my world. All
the essays could be sent with the required details of the participant
to a common e-mail ID, with judges created from the list of peace educators.
Entries can be judged and winning pieces on Peace as well as all other
contributions from kids can be posted on the site. Canadian kids can get
to read those of the Indian kids and vice versa.


SCREEN SAVER FOR PEACE

Call for a competition on creative expressions on Peace for the
screen saver-wherein children can paint expressions of peace and send a
scanned image of the same as entries. The best entries can be collected
and put on a web site for anyone to use them as screen savers on the
computers at our work places and homes.

The more we see peace as visuals the more we will set the right
environment for Peace.


WATER and PEACE project-- " Speak Peace with the language of water"

A greater community project on Peace can be done with all the kids
across Canada and India to start with and then also with other countries.

I have tried to explain what I have in mind. You can let me know
your ideas on this.

Objective:

Water to be used as a tool to bring children of the world express Peace
and experience peace, and make everyone speak peace as much as they use and understand water.

How?

"Using Water as a tool, children to be asked to describe and
explain Peace." --to establish as Peace Water association.

"Using water as a tool for children to be asked to solve peace issues"—using
the Peace Water association as a tool to experience peace. "

Constant linking up of these 2 different world of meaning will help us
experience peace as much as we experience water. Using water as a metaphor
will make people think of peace as much as they think of water.

Why I have chosen water to be used as a metaphor to explain peace is
because Water is taken everyday, is everywhere, everyone knows it, one
cannot live without it, and EVERY ONE UNDERSTANDS WATER.

So using what is well understood and used everyday we understand peace
and dwell on related thoughts as much as water is used.

Water is vital and critical for survival as much as peace.
Water is free and so is Peace.
Water is something that all the people irrespective of cultures will
know, need and thirst for-just as peace-which all cultures of people
will want and thirst for.

Water is in everyone's dictionary everyday. But Peace is not.
Associating Water with Peace, one will get accustomed to the
dynamics of Peace as well as comfortable as dealing with water.
Knowledge about Peace will become as commonly available.

Consider how easily we understand finance using what is the Water
model of finance-

Where 2 different world of meanings are connected using a word that
is understood by all to help explain the other. The metaphor is Water.

Water model of finance
Pump money in
Float a loan
Deposits
Drain
Bank
Solvency etc

Words related to the world of water that every human understands can
thus be used to explain Peace.

The Bible has a example- Living waters. Quiet waters.

What I could think of was phrases such as --

Thirst for peace......
Overflow with ........
Need for Peace Quenched with ...

When we describe water in these 3 areas I have mentioned we get to
understand how cultures operate.

Example how water is procured
How water is distributed and shared
How water is served..

Conclusion--

So when children are therefore asked to express Peace using Water as a
metaphor , they will tend to describe peace as it stands in their culture,
besides building out of the box solutions. So a collection of such creative
articles will throw a great deal of light on peace at the grass roots, as well
as make people think more on Peace. Car bumper stickers and slogans can be
created from this "pool" of metaphor expressions. Power phrases for Peace can
be developed, where we create a new peace language using water.
(with the hope that people will experience peace as much as they experience water)

For want of time (I have just a week more for these virtual projects to
be created into a structured take shape) I have keyed in this mail, and have
not gone over it again...please excuse the mistakes if any and please do
send in your comments, as well as suggestions for peace projects.

Thanks for your attention to this mail.
Have a great day.

Regards

Rtn Dr. Shanti
Special Peace Ambassador- RDPCP- Rotary Dt 9700
Associate District Chairman- Vocational Service - Rotary Dt 3230.
Founder President - Prashanti International Center for Peace
Head - The Workshop
Trainer- Max New York Life Insurance Ltd

Email from Bob Stewart, Rotary Club of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada (D5360)
http://www.peace.ca
ANNUAL PEACE EDUCATION CONFERENCE IN CANADA
http://www.peace.ca/CanadianAgenda2003.htm

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