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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.
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