Photo: Peace Dialogue leads Berghof Foundation’s Peace Counts Workshop Program in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. © 2015, Peace Dialogue; Author: Anna Zakaryan
Anna Zakaryan and Artahes Sergoyan of Peace Dialogue NGO along with co trainers from Georgia and Abakhazia facilitated the Peace Counts program of the Berghof foundation to different groups in both Armenia and in Nagorno-Karabakh. The groups included the mothers of deceased soldiers as well as young adults and women who are interested in peace building.
The program included both an exhibition and specifically adapted multimedia materials and the proven Peace Counts Learning Package called “Peacebuilders around the World“. This program developed by Berghof Foundation brings the exhibition to conflict regions in order to demonstrate best-practice examples of how successful peacebuilders inspire people to take action for peace in their own region or country and focuses on learning from biographies and visualization as a means to foster critical engagement with the essential topics, namely, conflict, violence and peace. The programs were held in Shushi and Stepanakert in the NK and Yerevan, Vanadzor, Alaverdi, and Berdavan in September and October. One more will be held in Gyumri in November. Prior to these workshops a ToT course was held by the specialists from Berghof Foundation in Peace Dialogue’s office in Vanadzor.
The training program provided information and resources to people who are engaged in working in the educational, media or peacebuilding sectors. It aims at strengthening their identity as peacebuilders and encourages them to work towards peaceful solutions for violent conflicts. During the workshops, participants were introduced to a variety of methods for peace education in the hope that many of them will integrate these approaches into their own working environment.
According to one of the workshop trainers from Georgia the discussion was very active and interesting: participants discussed the advantages of education and the role of the woman in peacebuilding. The trainer from Abkhazia added that she was impressed on how seriously the participants were discussing the peace or conflict related topics. They also emphasized gender equality as an important tool for peace building. Participants analysed the role of religion in conflict dynamics. Another important point of the discussion was the influence of democratic institutions and democratic values on the peacebuilding process within the society. Participants also discussed the role of the individual for influencing on the peaceful changes in the country.
Some of the participants were asking for Peace Counts materials to apply them in everyday teaching process. Some of the participants even suggested to have Peace Counts TOT for teachers, so that they could successfully implement the methods and materials in their teaching process in schools.
For more information on this or other programs of Berghof Foundation please go to http://www.peace-counts.org/english/).
