{"id":37637,"date":"2016-06-28T07:37:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T07:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialchangeschool.org\/28\/06\/2016\/investing-in-peace-education-against-fear-peace-and-violence-illiteracy-and-separatism\/"},"modified":"2023-03-28T09:01:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T09:01:59","slug":"investing-in-peace-education-against-fear-peace-and-violence-illiteracy-and-separatism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialchangeschool.org\/it\/28\/06\/2016\/investing-in-peace-education-against-fear-peace-and-violence-illiteracy-and-separatism\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in Peace Education against fear and violence illiteracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Silvia Fontana| 28 Giugno 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recent UK referendum on EU gives us a good starting point to the discussion on the importance of re-building a culture of peace in our communities through education. Mere propaganda, poor analysis of the phenomena and\/or institutions of our days, in primis<\/em> (for the UK debate) the refugees challenges and the EU dynamics and transfer mechanisms. The stats on referendum result showed a nation extremely divided by age, level of education and by geography (center vs periphery). Unfortunately, in the days after the referendum result a rise in racist incidents occurred in UK. Apart from the disastrous result, what strikes me the most is the low level of social cohesion that UK demonstrated during this important moment.<\/p>\n

Fear won on acceptance, money won on unity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the high economic impact of violence<\/a> on the global economy, which is USD $ 13.6 trillion \u2013 equivalent to USD $ 1,876 per person, we continue to divide each other, we continue to build walls instead of bridges. Indeed, global inequality in Peace[1]<\/a> has widened in 2016 and the world became less peaceful in 2016, reinforcing an underlying decade-long deterioration in world peacefulness.<\/p>\n

How do we move forward? Education to Positive Peace is key.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As recently stated by Amartya Sen<\/a>, in this difficult moment, EU should recall its founding principles of the Ventotene Manifesto (1941) which were not primarily on financial systems (banks and money) but rather on peace and a political and social integration of European countries.<\/p>\n

Were we lost in the process? Yes, definitely. I do believe we might have focused our attention only<\/span> to the system itself rather than to the humans involved in it. \u00a0We do have a chance to change the status quo towards more peaceful societies. Where to start? First, it is important to educate our communities towards Positive Peace[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Positive Peace: not just a concept but a plan of actions for our societies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Positive Peace refers to the attitudes, institutions and structures that sustain peace. According to the findings of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP),<\/a> countries with high positive peace are more likely to maintain their stability, adapt and recover from both internal and external shocks. The Institute defines eight factors that contribute to Positive Peace:<\/p>\n