Current Status
? February 2003
Despite the negative events that have
disrupted life in Serbia and Montenegro over the last decade or so, the family
and the community remain intact with a values system as strong as ever.
Undergoing major reforms, the Ministry of Education has had the foresight to
include reinforcement of these values in their new plans.
As a first step in this direction, early in November 2002, Belgrade was the
venue of two programs offered by Living Values: An Educational Program and
organised by our new coordinator, Zana Borisavljevic. Both training programs
were conducted in English by LVEP Trainer Sue Emery with Zana Borisavljevic and
her team co-coaching, facilitating and translating into Serbian.
There were 36 participants on the three-day training program comprising top
officials and secondary school trainers and inspectors from the Ministry of
Education. The general consensus was that there is a great need for the values
program in Yugoslavia, that the people there already have values, but that
training and awareness programs are necessary to get educators and others to
re-emerge those values in their practical everyday life. Participants were
particularly interested in the Conflict Resolution steps for children and the
way in which Living Values addresses different learning styles and teaching
techniques. In addition, they expressed happiness at the ministry?s
willingness to cooperate in the program and the atmosphere created by the
trainers. At the end of the third day, with Action Plans in hand, this group
proposed that a 5-member team be formed to create a ?final? version of
educator training in LVEP that could be disseminated to all schools in the
region.
Not wanting to miss out on anything, participants on the following one-day
training for 40 pre-school and primary school trainers and inspectors from the
Ministry of Education took part actively and enthusiastically. They were
extremely energetic in putting together their Action Plans and the main
criticism was that the training should have been longer. This group
overwhelmingly enjoyed the two videos showing LVEP participation in various
countries as well as the experiment with the professional mime in the nursery
school in France. They requested that the Living Values Activities for
Children Ages 3-7 be translated immediately and that further training is
carried out very soon.
[Note: Inspectors/trainers are responsible for anything between 200 and 500
schools each.]
Following the two training programs, members of the public were invited to a
presentation on the Living Values Education program. Fifty participants, a mixed
group of parents and teachers, were inspired by the program?s aims and the
talk was concluded with a lively question and answer session.
We would like to thank the following for their contribution to the success of
the training and the introduction of Living Values to Yugoslavia:
- The Living Values team in France for sponsoring Sue Emery?s travel
expenses from the United Kingdom.
- The Ministry of Education for sponsoring lunch and refreshments during
both training programs, as well as providing simple hotel accommodation for
participants who travelled from outside Belgrade, and for printing all the
materials used during the training.
- The Kralt Petar (King Peter) Primary School for hosting the first training
program and for use of their equipment.
- The Dechi Dani Pre-school Group for hosting the second training program
and for use of their facilities.
- The Scadalia Pre-School for offering their premises for the public talk
organised by the Centre for Creative Action.
- The Centre for Creative Action for helping to organise the training and
the public talk.
Since the programs in November, a team of eight has been formed to start
translation of all LVEP materials into Serbian. Further training of English
teachers is expected to be carried out towards the winter of 2003. Follow-up
training is also planned for May 2003.
