Download Educating for a Culture of Peace in Refugee Camps - pdf
These supplements contain activities that give children an opportunity to begin the healing process while learning about peace, respect and love. Designed to be implemented by refugee teachers of the same culture as the children, there are 49 lessons for children three to seven years old and 60 lessons for students eight to fourteen years old. The lessons provide tools to begin to deal with grief while developing positive adaptive social and emotional skills. A section on camp-wide strategies offers suggestions for creating a culture of peace, conducting values-education groups for parents/caregivers, cooperative games, and supporting conflict resolution monitors. Teachers are to continue with the regular Living Values activities after these lessons are completed.
Living Values Education Training for Refugees and Children Affected by War
This is designed for teachers working in schools or refugee camps with children affected by war.
Living Values Education offers training to implement Living Values Education Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War. It is essential that educators receive this training prior to doing the programme with children. Because most educators working in camps or schools in formerly war-torn areas have been subjected to the effects of war, the workshop is deliberately long in order to begin to engage them in a healing process and develop trust in the process.
Living Values Education training for the Living Values Education Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War programme begins with a welcome, the purposes of the program, and introductory activities. Teachers are asked about their concerns, and in light of previous discussions with organizers, the programme is shared in relationship to their particular circumstances. Teachers then participate in values awareness sessions.
Sessions on active listening take place early in the training, and continue almost every day of the full ten-day workshop. The educators discuss the teaching methods and attitudes that create a learning environment in which students feel loved, valued, respected, understood and safe. Teachers are then engaged in several activities that are in both Living Values Education Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War and regular Living Values Education activities for children. Living Values Education's theoretical model and the rationale behind the variety of values activities are presented.
Several days into the programme, Living Values Education activities that deal with war in the Living Values Education Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War unit are introduced. The teachers are divided into small groups. They participate in some of the activities, are told about others, and teach the activities by the end of the training. It is important for all of the teachers to go through the lessons to understand how the process works, not just intellectually but emotionally. While this model is not that of a "talking cure", it allows people to express their feelings about war and those who are missing or have died. Hence, some of the sessions can be emotional or elicit strong emotions.
The activities are designed with supportive elements and participants engage in expressive activities through drawing, puppets, sharing, relaxation/focusing exercises, and traditional songs. In one of the activities, factors leading to war are discussed; participants real concerns are engaged. The training provides additional sessions to develop skills for creating a values-based environment. This includes acknowledgement, encouragement, and positively building behaviors, conflict resolution, collaborative rule-making, and values-based discipline.
This training for refugee teachers lasts two weeks. Follow-up sessions are recommended. If there is a need for this training in your country or region, please click here to email
Read more about Living Values Education's programme for refugees and children affected by war.
Results in a Refugee Camp
There are also wonderful stories from educators in special circumstances. In Thailand, one year after implementing Living Values Education in a Karen Tribe refugee camp, nine out of 24 refugee-camp teachers working with children and youth, reported 100% improvement in violent behaviour; the others cited an 80% reduction in aggressiveness.
Within two years of initiating the program, the high frequency fights between young people from different sections of the camp had completely ceased. In its place was spontaneous play, creative play, caring, happiness and cooperation.