Peace Praxis
The traditional definition of peace being merely the absence of war is loosing ground. And rightly so! Peace is maybe less a state or goal than a process and a means in itself. Most people want peace, but the ways towards it are not so obvious. So let's try – first at an individual level – to find characteristics and competencies which would contribute to becoming a “peacebuilder” in daily life. In this sense the idea is to reflect on how YOUth can promote a process of peace at our personal level of choices and actions.
This interactive workshop invites participants to discover and discuss the “human factor” of peace. Stipulating that every individual can contribute to peace through his or her conscious lifestyle, it aims to identify characteristics, competencies, skills, capacities, attitudes and forms of behaviour useful to promote peace in our daily environment. It also aims to raise awareness about peace as a personal process rather than an abstract and distant goal, and that developing one's own competencies – and ultimately one's own personality – might be an equally important commitment and contribution to peace than starting a public campaign. In the meantime, peace can be understood in many different ways, and again hundreds of ways can help someone to get closer to what that very person defines as peace. In this sense, this workshop aims to encourage participants to find their personal definition of peace, to make them reflect on the competencies and attitudes necessary to contribute to this form of peace, and to provide inputs on how these competencies could be continually fostered and nourished.
This workshop will be organized by the Peace Education Group of SCI Switzerland.
Service Civil International (SCI) is a peace organisation that co-ordinates international voluntary projects for people of all ages, cultures, religious and economic backgrounds.
Our work is based on the belief that all people are capable of living together and co-operating with mutual respect and without recourse to violence to solve conflict.
Through international voluntary work we aim to give people the chance to experience this way of living whilst contributing in a useful manner to the community.