In 2022, peacebuilding remains one of the person’s demands and seeks to achieve. Owing to the fact that building societies begin with building people, all countries have concluded the necessity of establishing peace through education in order to reach a reality where peace is an inevitable matter. What is the concept of peace we are talking about? Can it really be taught and learned?
Peace is the state of security, stability, and harmony among all individuals in the absence of all forms of unrest, wars, and violence. The purity of this term has prompted all societies to seek peace in their regions and with other regions, in comparison to the urgent and valuable benefit that is reflected on the human being in all aspects. [1]
The events that took place in the world and claimed the lives of millions of people were the direct causes of humanity’s need for peace. “To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” are among the first very words of the UN Charter (in its Preamble).
Those words were the main motivation for creating the United Nations after the two World Wars and the resulting devastation.
The consensus was to establish the United Nations on 24 October 1945 (the date of its Charter’s entry into force), help restore peace following the outbreak of armed conflict, and promote lasting peace in societies emerging from wars. [5]
While peace is highlighted and needed, the process of pursuing it is hampered by obstacles to its achievement in the current world, the most important of which are:
Community or social peace is the most important and fundamental factor in achieving stability and security for all societies by bringing justice and ensuring the rights of all individuals. In addition to creating cooperation and partnership among individuals and raising their citizenship values. This ensures the achievement of development, progress, growth, and prosperity in different sectors and the development of social institutions because all efforts are in the service of the nation and society.
In the case of disputes and wars, societies are divided into several parties that are preoccupied with revenge and retaliation against each other, and private interests are supreme and dominate over socialism and the public interest. In these turbulent situations, it is impossible to preserve even the minimum existing civilization which leads to the total collapse of society’s entity. [3]
One of the most striking things is the need for education and training on a culture of social peace in the personality of each individual, which has become inevitable so that the results begin to be verified. This generates a great responsibility on the institutions of society to consolidate and empower this culture, starting from the psychological inner peace of each individual to the general societal peace and environmental peace with a focus on sustainable development.
Peace education is the process of providing individuals with values and knowledge and developing their attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live affectionately and calmly with themselves, others, and the natural environment. [3]
Education is the most important means of getting rid of ignorance and hatred, through which the culture and civilization of other peoples, their customs and traditions, are introduced. Through this knowledge, people learn to respect each other and appreciate the cultural and religious differences among them, which allows wide scope for rapprochement and settlement of differences away from the culture of violence and war.
Spreading the culture of peace and tolerance in societies has become the most important endeavor that is transmitted to all members of society and to generations through education. By combating all factors of fear of others and developing the ability of generations and pushing them to the independence of opinion and critical and ethical thinking.
Educational policies and programs prepared by governments and organizations contribute to promoting solidarity and tolerance among individuals and combating violence and extremism, by teaching human values to achieve peace, integration, mutuality, social solidarity, knowledge of human rights, and human dignity through continuous development and improvement of curricula. Most importantly, linking education with life skills. [4]
Uplifting Syrian Women is an initiative that seeks to achieve and build peace in the Syrian society in particular and the global communities in general through education and its voluntary, free-of-charge educational courses, interactive workshops, and discussion sessions to activate freedom of discussion and participation, with the aim of achieving the goals of gender equality, quality education and improving the economic situation. Which is in the interest of the peace of society in general and serves the purpose of rebuilding it.
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♀️ Uplifting Syrian Women Initiative aims at sustainable peace building in Syria through targeting women and providing them with free online courses, workshops, discussion sessions and trainings, with a view to achieving the goals of Gender Equality, Quality Education and Decent Work and Economic Growth, which all fall into the interest of society as a whole and serve the purpose of rebuilding it.
References:
[1] Mawdoo3- Peace
[3] Mimir
[4] Ishtar
[5] UN