Education in Conflict and Post Conflict Contexts is workshop written in partnership with United World College Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina. http://uwcmostar.ba/ Following a successful 2 day pilot in November 2015, the inaugural 3 day workshop is scheduled for October 2016 in Mostar.
The workshop provides a challenging, transformational experience to a diverse cross section of participants from education, politics and non-governmental organisations from around the world. The workshop will reflect on the relationship between education and conflict, learning from conflict and post-conflict contexts in which we live and work, demonstrate how we live out the UWC mission in our Colleges, and imagine and design strategies for education that can respond to humanity’s most urgent issue.
Who should attend the inaugural workshop?
Teachers - to work with colleagues from around the world and design strategies for curricula development, andragogy and pedagogy that can respond to conflict and post-conflict contexts
Heads - to take the lead on planning, design and implementation of strategies for curricula development, andragogy and pedagogy that can change the way education in conflict and post-conflict contexts happens
Government agencies and NGOs - to work with educators, to understand the potential of education as a driver of positive change and to design and implement strategies that can have a serious and positive long-term impact on conflict and post-conflict societies.
For more information and to register your interest in attending, please email shamayim@plommerwatson.com
Workshop style
The workshop has been designed to be intensive and participatory, with the maximum opportunity for dialogue, debate, experiential learning, listening and analysis designed to provide delegates with concrete ideas to take back into policy and planning in their organisations.
There will be three sessions on each day consisting of:
1. Theory (An exploration of the relationship between education and conflict)
2. Immersion (Experiential learning)
3. Spotlight (Testimony from invited speakers)
The workshop will be built around three themes:
1. Coming to terms with the past
2. Engaging with the present
3. Preparing for the future
The Peace Challenge – UWC Mostar – Leading The Way
The war of 1992-1995 led to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia into independent republics. Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular suffered horrifying devastation: mass destruction, more than 100,000 people killed (the majority of them civilian) and roughly 50% of the population displaced. Demographic structures of the country changed and many previously culturally mixed cities became dominated by one of the three main national groups.
The birth of a United World College in 2006 in a renovated building on the former frontline, which the College shares with a local gymnasium, created a new dimension both for the UWC movement and for international education as a whole. The UWC Mostar story is a compelling one, grounded in profound moral purpose.
“International education will remain truly relevant in the globalized world of the 21st century only if it manages to provide answers to the acute problems and questions of our time. The UWC and IB work in Bosnia has been an important opening in that direction and offers many lessons that should be taken into account.” Pilvi Torsti, Co-founder and Chair of the Foundation, UWC Mostar.
“UWC Mostar seems to me to be at the front line of the UWC movement and should be recognised and supported as such”. Andrew Maclehose, UWC Atlantic & Adriatic Colleges, March 2014
Why you should attend?
● You can enable your organisation to be a change agent of society; a leader in its approach to Education in conflict and post conflict contexts
● You will develop a strategic and practical approach to peace and conflict resolution in education
● You and your students will become thought leaders in Education in conflict and post conflict contexts locally, regionally and globally
● You will be equipped to lead your institution in developing new strategies for responding to the challenge of international mindedness, co-existence and inter-dependence into the curricula and the governance of schools
● You will be part of a unique network of thought leaders in Education in conflict and post conflict contexts – part of an “Active Alumni”, an inaugural cohort of workshop graduates who contribute to the development of the programme as it extends its global reach over the coming years.
Looking ahead: the workshop legacy
A key workshop objective is to help build a cohort of alumni who go on to have a profound impact on the world, through the organisations they serve, and that this initiative helps give them the skills and capability necessary to have that kind of impact.
We hope and expect that the alumni from this inaugural workshop will play leading roles in its development and implementation.For more information and to register your interest in attending, please email shamayim@plommerwatson.com
Education & Sustainability Leadership Programme (ESLP)
The Education and Sustainability Leadership Programme (ESLP) focuses on the role of education in preparing learners for the complex world that they enter. Following a successful inaugural programme at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore in March 2015, the next programme will be in Southern Africa in July 2016.
The Sustainability Challenge
Humanity faces intense challenges of an unprecedented scale, complexity and interdependence. The current economic and environmental path is dangerously unsustainable. What contribution can and should the education sector play in responding to the impending crisis?
The Ideal Partnership of Leading Global Institutions
In collaboration with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and the University of Cape Town, the ESLP provides a transformational educational experience to a diverse cross-section of delegates by investigating the systems level, interdependent causes and consequences of sustainability in its broadest sense, encompassing the key environmental, social and economic drivers. The immersion programme challenges delegates to imagine, create and articulate the challenges in making sustainability the heartbeat of 21st century education. It will explore and develop innovative and practical approaches to incorporating sustainability thinking into their strategies for delivering high quality education to the next generation of learners who will have to face a very different world from that in which we live now. The immersion programme will invite delegates to respond by committing to changing the paradigm of education to meet The Sustainability Challenge.
Why should you attend?
● You will be equipped to lead your institution in developing new strategies for responding to the challenge of incorporating sustainability thinking into the curricula and the governance of schools.
● You can enable your organisation to be a change agent of society; a leader in its approach to education and sustainability.
● You will develop a strategic and practical approach to sustainability in education.
● You and your students will become thought leaders in sustainability locally, regionally and globally.
● You will be part of a unique network of thought leaders in education and sustainability – part of an ‘Active Alumni,’ a cohort of programme graduates who contribute to the development of the programme as it extends its global reach over the coming years.
The Southern Africa Dimension
Southern Africa faces intense socio-economic and environmental challenges. On the environmental front, the current draught - the worst in 100 years - brings home the vulnerability of the area. It also shows the interdependent nature of the sustainability drivers: water scarcity leads to food shortage and higher prices, which undermines the economy and increases poverty; greater poverty increases inequality which drives social conflict and further undermines confidence in the economy.
Energy shortages have a similar cycle. South Africa remains locked into an economy that is still too dependent on mining, and coal, especially. The region needs to re-wire its economy and its new leadership to take the necessary steps to do so. In turn, that will require a new generation of leaders capable of the systems thinking and innovation needed.
Education – through experiential learning and the curriculum – needs to reflect these imperatives and be prepared to innovate itself, if it is to contribute to building a new generation of leaders. Education needs to become the driver of change rather than a passive observer of it.
For more information and to register your interest in attending, please email shamayim@plommerwatson.com
Luib & Child Rescue Nepal
“Luib” www.luib.org is a game of athleticism, ingenuity and above all, integrity. In partnership with Child Rescue Nepal, www.childrescuenepal.org PWA is supporting this fantastic new sport, as an “ethical game for an ethical world”. Currently played by 25 schools across the world, Luib brings students together a local, regional and global levels, creating opportunities for them to play together in spirit of competitive camaraderie and work together on one of the most urgent issues facing humanity – the scourge of human trafficking. Child Rescue Nepal rescues and cares for trafficked
Nepali children who are sold for child labour
They save them from a life of physical abuse and forced labour, bring them home, provide medical and psychological treatment and try to re-unite them with their families. Child Rescue Nepal aims to stamp out the trafficking of children by carrying out anti-trafficking work, such as community education, pursuing the prosecution of traffickers, and improving schools.
Over the last 15 years, Child Rescue Nepal has rescued more than 600 children, around 500 of whom were sold into India to work in circuses. Others they have cared for include some rescued from adult prisons, held there because their parents were jailed, and a small number of abandoned or street children.
Most of the rescued children were reunited immediately with their families, but where this was not possible, the children lived in the Child Rescue Nepal refuge in Kathmandu until family could be found and a reunion arranged. Now, a few children who cannot go home live in the charity’s small, family-style homes in Kathmandu and Hetauda. Child Rescue Nepal still work to find kin for those without immediate families.
Over a Luib Championship weekend, students and staff enjoy the thrill of competition whilst learning through break-out workshop sessions, about the work of Child Rescue Nepal. The sessions also reflect on the importance of Service learning in education. Students will be asked to imagine and create links between sport and service learning and take away action plans (and hopefully a Luib trophy!) which can become significant parts of students’ IB Community Service and CAS portfolios, inspiring what they do in high school and beyond.
The inaugural Luib World Championships will take place in the autumn of 2016. For more information and to register your interest in attending, please email shamayim@plommerwatson.com