Dear friends,

Welcome to the August edition of the Ethics Education for Children newsletter.  

This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our flagship program Learning to Live Together - An Intercultural and Interfaith Programme for Ethics Education, that was developed for a period of four years through our Global Network of Religions for Children, and in close collaboration with UNESCO and UNICEF. It has been 10 years of great learning, collaborations, inspiration and sustainable implementation in more than 30 countries, reaching out to more than 150.000 children and youth around the world.  

This year we want to celebrate with you and I would like to invite you to join us in organising a local celebration meetup in the cities where you are. A meet up is an event organised to meet with people who have been part of the implementation of the Learning to Live Together Programme in your location to share the experiences, challenges and successes, or to present the program and inspire others to join you. Local meetups will take place in September. I invite you to share with us your ideas so we can help you disseminate.

I also want to invite you to apply for the Global Awards. If you are a child, youth, facilitator, trainer or an organization who has been involved in the implementation of the Learning to Live Together Programme, please do apply. We want to recognise the great work you have done!

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our flagship program, this year we also launched a new one called Strengthening Families to Nurture Values and Spirituality in Early Childhood that aims to work closely with religious communities for the prevention of violence in the family and for the creation of caring, safe, nurturing and loving environments for our children. Arigatou International launched in July this year an International Consortium formed by faith-based and civil society organisations, multilateral agencies, academia and experts to work on this topic. I am happy to know that so many have joined us in this new journey towards making the world fit for children starting from early years. 

You can learn more about this new initiative as well as the celebrations in this newsletter. I invite you to read it and get in touch with us.  
 

In peace,


Maria Lucia Uribe
Director, Arigatou International Geneva

Perspectives
Towards a World of Peace: The Promise of Early Childhood Development
by Dr. Rima Salah

Dr. Rima Salah is Assistant Clinical Professor in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Assistant Clinical Professor in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. She served as a Member of the United Nations High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, and as the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, U.N. Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad. In addition, Dr. Salah was Deputy Executive Director at UNICEF and held several other high level positions in the organization.  

According to the series on ‘Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale,’ that was recently published in The Lancet (2017), the world’s oldest and best known medical journal, we know that unfortunately, an estimated 250 million children under five years of age in low and middle income countries and emerging economies will face inequalities and fail to reach their full development potential. This is because they grow up with a broad range of risk factors that include poverty, poor health, abuse, neglect, and exploitation, as well as inadequate care and learning opportunities.

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Consortium
Civil Society, Faith-based and Multilateral Organizations, and Academia Come Together to Address Violence in Early Childhood

Arigatou International Geneva launched a new Consortium with civil society, faith-based and multilateral organizations, and Academia to work together to challenge violence in early childhood and mobilize religious communities to support families in nurturing safe and protective environments for children.

The new Consortium will work to foster collaboration, share good practices and develop evidence-based and innovative approaches in religious communities that contribute to end violence in early childhood, challenging social and cultural norms that justify it and supporting families to nurture values and spirituality in children.   

The Consortium was launched in Geneva from 3 to 4 July, preceded by a one day public seminar that looked at the intersections between early childhood development, violence against children, positive parenting practices, the critical role of nurturing spirituality in children that can break the cycle of violence in the family, and the role that religious communities play.   

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Publication
Transformative pedagogy for peace-building: A guide for teachers

Arigatou International Geneva collaborated with the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) to lead the development of Transformative Pedagogy for Peace-Building: A Guide for Teachers, which was  produced as part of the Teacher Training and Development for Peace-building in the Horn of Africa and Surrounding Countries project, funded by the Government of Japan.
 
The development of the guide was preceded by a Training of Teacher Trainers that reached 29 teachers from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, and Uganda in Entebbe, Uganda from 3 to 8 September 2017. The objective of the week-long training workshop was to strengthen the capacity of trainers who will then cascade the training in their respective countries, reaching 8,000 secondary school teachers across the six countries.
 
The Teachers Guide was launched in March 2018 and was designed to build the capacity of teachers so that they are informed and empowered in why and how to educate for peace-building. It offers an analysis of conflict, examines the role of ethics, expands on the elements of transformative pedagogy and provides practical tools to assess learners’ understanding of peacebuilding concepts and skills.

Download

Childs Rights Advocacy
Civil Society Organizations and Permanent Missions in Geneva Join Forces for a Childhood Free from Violence

As a lead up to the 2018 Malta High-Level Global Conference that took place in June, Arigatou International Geneva co-sponsored an event on 24 May 2018 together with the Working Group on Children and Violence. The Working Group gathers a number of NGOs in Geneva under the umbrella of Child Rights Connect, to work through the Human Rights mechanisms to promote actions that prompt violence prevention strategies and protect children who are vulnerable.

The event Towards Childhood Free from Physical and Humiliating Punishment: Challenges and Opportunities in Ending Punitive Violence Against Children was a call from civil society, and was attended by Geneva-based NGOs and permanent missions to the United Nations in Geneva. The event aimed to promote a ban on all types of corporal punishment.

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