25 participants from all over the Europe had an opportunity to take active part in the International
Conference, which was held in Palermo from 20th to 25th of November 2012. The event was organised
in cooperation with UNOY Peacebuilders (Netherlands), Fundacion Catalunya Voluntaria (Spain) and
PATRIR (Romania).
Our conference ‘The role of young people in peacebuilding and social change: good practices and
future perspectives’ was the response to young’s people increasing interest and motivation in
changing the current situation of which nuances they are very often aware. During 4 days participants
were gaining knowledge about the theoretical and practical part of issues related with peace, culture
of peace, social change, peacebuilding, conflict and conflict transformation.
Every activity was based on a non-formal education and created in order to meet participants’ needs
and expectations. Their skills might be developed by not only taking part in workshops related to art,
but also running own workshops about the best peace practice in their motherlands and discussing the
problem with local people during city game. Participants were educating others about volunteering
in countries such as Cambodia, Philipines and Sudan; methods of spreading peace and conflict
transformation.
With all of the activities we tried to reach the aim of the conference which was:
- To create a space where young people can share their experiences in peacebuilding and human rights education and to propel young people spirits to the task of peacebuilding with a special focus on arts.
- Additionally the specific objectives of the conference were:
- To create a space where young people can share their experiences in peacebuilding and human rights education.
- To share new methods on peace education and human rights education specifically in the field of arts.
- To propel young people spirits to the task of peacebuilding, namely, foster in young people
- emotional and social competencies for peace.
- To reinforce the cohesion among the group of participants as a mean to favour the follow up and networking.
- To foster learning on peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
Great amount of the team were motivated to fight in the field of peacebuilding and received a new
ideas of encouraging other people to take part in all of the activities related to peace and culture of
peace.
The project was funded with the financial support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe.
