The Association for Living Values Education International ("ALIVE") is a collective of organizations and associations and individuals in over 40 countries that provide professional development workshops and curriculum resources to educators around the world. Working with a strong spirit of volunteerism, they offer students and teachers, children and adults alike, a message and experience of personal empowerment and practical skills and materials for use in a diverse range of learning environments through a vision of education called THE LIVING VALUES EDUCATION APPROACH.
OUR VISION
Living Values Education is a way of conceptualizing education that promotes the development of values-based learning communities and places the search for meaning and purpose at the heart of education. LVE emphasizes the worth and integrity of each person involved in the provision of education, in the home, school and community. In fostering quality values education, LVE supports the overall development of the individual and a culture of positive values in each society and throughout the world, believing that education is a purposeful activity designed to help humanity flourish.
Our vision is the emergence of a better world in which values such as:
Peace • Love • Respect • Responsibility • Tolerance • Honesty • Humility
• Happiness • Cooperation • Simplicity • Freedom • Unity
become the compass with reference to which all people chart the journey of their lives and the development of humanity as a whole. We believe that education is an essential part of the journey to such a better world.
OUR MISSION
ALIVE's mission is to support teachers, facilitators, trainers and learners, wherever they are, who wish to place and keep values at the heart of their work and life. This is based on the premise that:
- It is inherent in what it means to be human to want to feel valued, understood, loved, safe and respected.
- People around the world share basic human values and have the potential for self-development and positive interaction with others and their environment.
- Education is an inherently values-based enterprise and students thrive in a caring and values-based atmosphere in which mutual respect and responsibility are embraced.
- Constructive solutions to many of the challenges facing communities will emerge more easily when there is an emphasis on a values-based approach to life.
- Providing appropriate opportunities and an enabling values-based environment can make a decisive difference to children and adults in setting and maintaining a positive direction in their lives.
OUR AIMS
- To provide educators and learners with guiding principles and tools for the development of the whole person, recognizing that the individual is comprised of the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
- To provide professional development workshops, curriculum resources and support to educationists wishing to embrace values as the heart of their practice.
- To help individuals think about and reflect on different values and the practical implications of expressing them in relation to themselves, others, the community and the world at large.
- To deepen understanding, motivation and responsibility with regard to making positive personal and social choices.
- To inspire individuals to choose their own personal, social, moral and spiritual values and be aware of practical methods for developing and deepening them.
- To encourage educators, caregivers and parents to provide students and those in their care with a philosophy of living, thereby facilitating their overall growth and personal development so they may integrate themselves into the community with respect, confidence and purpose.
- To advance the awareness that values are the sustaining force of society and the foundation of human progress.
- To assist all people to recognize that the values they live by affect the quality of their life experience.