Category Archives: EDUCATION FOR PEACE

Mexico: Oaxaca’s Judicial Power promotes a culture of peace

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article reprinted from the Quadratin Oaxaca (translation by CPNN)

The Superior Court of Justice of Oaxaca has signed a collaboration agreement with the College of Scientific and Technological Studies of the State of Oaxaca (CECyTEO) to promote the culture of peace.

The President of the Court, Eduardo Pinacho Sánchez reported that “together, combining our efforts, resources, wills and the corresponding technical capacities, we can work with better results to achieve a culture of peace among the educational community.”

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(click here for a version in Spanish).

Question for this article:

Mediation as a tool for nonviolence and culture of peace

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He pointed out that an approach to peace will be offered through the Alternative Justice Center; the approach includes school mediation and restorative justice as conflict resolution mechanisms that empower students to collaborate and contribute to harmonious educational and social spaces.

Pinacho Sánchez stressed that this agreement signifies the recognition and awareness that justice does not depend solely on the Judiciary. “The solution of the conflicts that arise within society does not only correspond to the judges who at a given moment have to pass a sentence. The responsibility rests with all people without exception, to all sectors of society and institutions; it is a general responsibility that we must assume. ”

Gathered in the facilities of the Council of the Judiciary, under the sanitary measures decreed by the federal and state authorities, the President of the Court stressed that the culture of peace must be fostered from the family and the areas in which the first contacts and relationships of a social nature take place, such in the schools where children and young people can acquire the ability and capacity to resolve our own conflicts.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

More than 29 thousand people registered in the Second International Montessori Congress, a free virtual event

. EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from Murcia.com

From July 6 to 10, the second International Montessori Congress will be held, organized by Miriam Escacena, head of Your Montessori Guide, and by the renowned researchers, trainers and founders of Montessori Canela International, who this year will join the organization of this international event, Marco Zagal and Betzabé Lillo Orellana, who contribute their more than 10 years of experience in teacher training and transformation of schools in Spain and various countries.

The virtual event will bring together thirty experts from Spain, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Sweden, France, Slovakia and Italy. Most of the speakers are friends and collaborators of Montessori Canela and will speak on different topics related to education as an element of social change. The presentations can be seen for free during the week of July 6-10.


In Montessori schools, the children are not required to sit passively in regimented rows of desks.

In Spain there are around 150 Montessori schools.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of María Montessori, the founder of Montessori schools.

The program is based on eight axes: Montessori Education, Human Development, Inclusive Education, Educational Neuroscience, Public Schools, Educating with the family and Educational documentary films, united by the theme “Educating in the now: Montessori, culture of peace” ..

The opening ceremony will take place on Sunday, July 5 at 6:00 p.m. in mainland Spain and will be broadcast through the organizers’ social networks.

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article)

Question related to this article:
 
What is the best way to teach peace to children?

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Betzabé Lillo Orellana points out that “the purpose of this congress is to be able to convey a message of hope, optimism and tranquility in a context as uncertain as we are in, which is why we emphasize Educating in the Now, since it is important to take this crisis as an opportunity to rethink how we want to live life, discovering the essentials in everyday life, getting closer to the real meaning of happiness.”
The Congress promises a space that allows participants to :

– Become aware of the human potential that is present in the adverse situations of life, because, well oriented and accompanied, they become a source of growth to consider adversity as an opportunity.

– Search for alternatives to find within yourself that energy that is needed to overcome and advance in any difficult or problematic situation that we are experiencing.

– Connect with the creativity that is in each child, youth and adult as part of their being, as a transforming force that takes greater prominence in family, socio-cultural and specific adversity situations such as what happens in these times of pandemic.

– Know experiences, life stories and the creative duality of theory and practice in different areas that favor a more humane education.

– Mutually share inspiration to be able to help all of us nurture an awareness that helps us see that everything we are experiencing is an opportunity to change and grow.

This Congress is aimed at all people who seek to contribute to a better education, to a better society. Marco Zagal explains to us that “there are parents, professionals, and self-taught people from different areas who are always looking to learn something new or reinforce ideas that allow them to create respectful spaces in the different areas of childhood and adolescence. The contribution that we believe this Congress will give to families and professionals is directly related to a broader understanding of what children and adolescents are, and how caring for their psychological, emotional, social and physical life is the best gift. and the best inheritance that we can leave them. ”

Miriam Escacena highlights that “after the success of the congress last year, this year we are once again uniting with a spirit of trust with great expectation”. In these times in which we are facing a true paradigm shift, in which that change in the educational system that so many long for is finally coming true, accessible and quality initiatives are necessary more than ever.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Europe, global,

USA: Historian Robin D.G. Kelley: Years of Racial Justice Organizing Laid Groundwork for Today’s Uprising

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

Excerpts from a report on Jun 11 in Democracy Now (The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org.)

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the mass uprising engulfing the U.S. and what protesters are demanding now, we go to Los Angeles, where we’re joined by Robin Kelley, professor of African American studies at UCLA. He studies social movements, author of many books, including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. . . .


video of full report

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Kelley, I want to go back to something that you  wrote  immediately following Trump’s election in November 2016. You wrote that the U.S. needs a multiracial movement committed to, quote, “dismantling the oppressive regimes of racism, heteropatriarchy, empire, and class exploitation that is at the root of inequality, precarity, materialism, and violence in many forms.” You’ve just talked about how the demands of this movement are very different. Do you see what’s happening now as what you wanted to happen in November 2016?

ROBIN D.G. KELLEY: Exactly. And not only that, but what I wrote in 2016 was actually a reflection of what was already happening on the ground. So, in some respects, remember, the Movement for Black Lives put out their policy platform in August of 2016.

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Question(s) related to this article:

Are we making progress against racism?

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And one of the things we all have to acknowledge is that we’re not here by accident. You know, this is not a spontaneous response to the pandemic, and suddenly white people are waking up and saying, “Oh, wait a second, Black lives matter.” No, this is a product of enormous work, going back well before Trayvon Martin. But you think about all the organizing work, the Movement for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter, the women who organized Black Lives Matter, initiated — Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors — people like Melina Abdullah, Charlene Carruthers of Black Youth Project 100, all the scholar activists who have been working on this question — Barbara Ransby, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore — and then, before that, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Copwatch, Dignity and Power, Critical Resistance, the African American Policy Forum. These were initiatives on the ground who did all this political education, all this organizing work — We Charge Genocide, Dream Defenders, the Rising Majority, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, and also groups like SURJ, you know, [Showing] Up for Racial Justice, which deals with white racism.

So you have an infrastructure in place that has been doing this work for a decade or more — more than a decade. And that’s why people are out here. That’s why people can come out into the streets and simply roll off their tongues words like “defund the police,” connect transphobia, homophobia, gender oppression, patriarchy to racial capitalism and to racial violence, connect these things in ways that I think are kind of unprecedented. But again, without the organizing work, we would not be here, you know? And I think it’s very important to even go back and acknowledge how the foundations were laid by the Combahee River Collective, by people like Barbara Smith, raised by the Third World Women’s Alliance, I mean, fighting around questions of connecting sterilization, abortion rights with racism. You know? So, these kinds of links, these connections — and also with war — are important. So, there’s a long history that got us here.

And the real question now is whether or not this can be sustained, because we know, throughout history, we’ve had revolutionary moments, after Reconstruction in the 1870s, followed by backlash and by what we can describe as American fascism. We have the sort of Second Reconstruction of the 1960s, followed by backlash, the rise of the Klan, the tamping down on the strike wave in the 1970s, neoliberalism. And now we’re facing another one. We have these forces trying to transform the world in a way that could actually bring safety and prosperity to all versus a president and a regime that asks, “What happened to Gone with the Wind? …

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Film From USA: Camden’s Turn: A Story of Police Reform in Progress

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A film from Not in our town, a movement to stop hate, racism and bullying, and build safe, inclusive communities for all.

Camden’s Turn is a documentary about a police department and a community in the process of transformation. As views of police and the communities they serve have become polarized across the country, Camden, NJ Police Chief Scott Thomson works to build relationships and calls on his officers “to shift from a warrior mentality to that of a guardian and community builder.”


Video of Camden’s Turn

The film follows Chief Thomson, his command staff and officers, as they work to implement community policing reforms in Camden County.

After the entire police force was laid off in 2012, Chief Thomson rebuilt the department and instituted a culture of community policing — incorporating de-escalation training, engaging officers in sports, school programs and community events, putting officers on bikes in neighborhoods and parks, and getting officers out of patrol cars and walking the beat.

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Questions for this article:

Where are police being trained in culture of peace?

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Camden’s strategy was highlighted by President Obama’s national efforts to implement the recommendations outlined in the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. After years of mistrust, violent crime, high arrests rates and devastating poverty, the film looks at how things are starting to turn around in Camden. Crime rates are down, people feel safer, and jobs are coming back to the city. (29 minutes)

Guide for film

This guide is designed as a tool for law enforcement and community stakeholders to facilitate screenings and discussions of the 29-minute Camden’s Turn: A Story of Police Reform in Progress. The guide provides: discussion questions and tips for organizing internal law enforcement agency and community screenings; information about community-oriented policing; and supplemental resources. Used together, the film and guide can help agencies and community groups work together to help improve law enforcement-community relations and build collaborative public safety partnerships.

Download the guide here.

[Editor’s note: According to an article in CNN published on June 9, Camden dissolved its entire police department in 2012 because it was corrupted with the drug trade and replaced it with a new police force with “community-oriented policing.” “It starts from an officer’s first day: When a new recruit joins the force, they’re required to knock on the doors of homes in the neighborhood they’re assigned to patrol, he said. They introduce themselves and ask neighbors what needs improving.”]

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, EDUCATION FOR PEACE, North America

Campaign Nonviolence: Weekly Nonviolence Online Community Course

EDUCATION FOR PEACE . .

An announcement from Pace et Bene

INTRODUCTION TO NONVIOLENCE ONLINE COMMUNITY COURSE

EVERY THURSDAY AT 1PM PACIFIC / 2PM MTN / 3PM CENTRAL / 4PM EASTERN, BEGINNING MAY 28TH THROUGH JULY 2, 2020
Six weekly sessions of 1.5 hr each – approx.

Goals of the Course:
This online course is a basic introduction to principled and strategic nonviolence using Pace e Bene’s Engaging Nonviolence Manual. It is intended to provide an opportunity to build community while studying nonviolence. Participants will connect with up to 50 people who share their interests in discovering the many dimensions of active nonviolence. Using small and large groups, facilitators Veronica Pelicaric and Rivera Sun will guide the participants through explorations into the personal, interpersonal, and social justice aspects of nonviolence. This Community Course is designed to be accessible, fun, friendly, and fearless. Using an online platform, participants can engage with this exciting field from the comforts of their home. The course will familiarize participants with the overall contents of the Engaging Nonviolence study program which will serve to foster personal growth, healthy relationships and work for world peace.

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Question related to this article:

How can webinars and online courses contribute to the culture of peace?

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Weekly Themes:

Week 1: Understanding Nonviolence; Unpacking Violence

Week 2: Exploring Nonviolence: Going Deeper

Week 3: Conflict & Community: Using Nonviolence In Our Lives

Week 4: Nonviolence, Emotions, & Inner Awareness

Week 5: Principles of Nonviolence: Gandhi, King, and Beyond!

Week 6: Building a Culture of Nonviolence: Why We Need Nonviolence In Our World

Requirements: All participants need to purchase the Engaging Nonviolence Manual. It can be bought on Amazon or directly from Pace e Bene. The course will be held on Zoom. Participants must have internet access, and microphone and video on their computer. Each week, participants will be expected to complete weekly readings/viewings and come prepared for group discussions online.

Participants are strongly encouraged to invite friends and community members. Shared knowledge increases the power of active nonviolence in our communities!

Maximum number of participants per course: 50

Cost: $80 USD for the 6 sessions. Register below. If you are in need of a scholarship, a few are available, just let us know. Email us at info@paceebene.org

REGISTRATION

Register here on bottom of page.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global

Transatlantic Dialogue wins Luxembourg Peace Prize

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from the University of Luxebourg

The Transatlantic Dialogue, a cooperation between the University of Luxembourg and Miami University, Ohio, is awarded the Luxembourg Peace Prize 2020 for “Outstanding Peace Education” by the Schengen Peace Foundation.

Question for this article:

What is the relation between peace and education?

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

The Transatlantic Dialogue is a global conference series, held in Luxembourg since 2008 and organised by the University of Luxembourg and the Miami University, Ohio. It explores the significance of culture and liberal education for fostering global citizenship from U.S. and European perspectives. The prize for “Outstanding Peace Education” recognises the Transatlantic Dialogue’s efforts for fostering a culture of peace among all ages, groups, youngsters, elderly, women, refugees etc. with a global impact over the years.

The award ceremony will take place as part of the 5th Transatlantic Dialogue. Originally scheduled to take place in May 2020, it has been postponed to May 2021 due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Europe

Spain: Movimiento por la Paz launches an online course with «five paths for peace»

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article from El Faradio (Copied and disseminated according to the Creative Commons License of El Faradio)


One of the images from the campaign “Essentials”

Given the situation of confinement including education, the Movimiento por la Paz (MPDL), a member of the Cantabrian Coordination of NGDOs, emphasizes more than ever the need for an education in values ​​based on respect and mutual support in which no one is left behind.

“From leisure and free time, favorable spaces are generated where the culture of peace can be fostered, with a focus on gender and Human Rights,” they highlight, which is why they have organized an online course for people who work in this area.

The course “Five paths for peace: a strategy of education in values ​​for free time” will begin on May 18 and will be conducted through a virtual platform that an be freely accessed.

There are twenty places for participants that will be filled in order of registration.

To be able to register, it will be necessary to do it at the link https://forms.gle/Tygx46gZZ5HTLyr28 or via email r.cifrian@mpdl.org .

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article.)

Question for this article:

Where is peace education taking place?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

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The course will address the keys and educational resources to promote values ​​education in leisure and free time, including cultural diversity, gender equality, the fight against poverty, care for the environment, and human rights.

‘ESSENTIALS’

On May 1, on the occasion of the International Day of Workers, the Movimiento por la Paz wants to especially recognize women workers in the domestic and care fields and their activity as essential for the care of life. That is why they demand the construction of a new model in which care becomes an essential element of our production and coexistence system.

Under this message they have launched the ESSENTIAL campaign, to make care visible as an essential element for the protection of life and to raise the voice against the labor exploitation of women workers in the domestic and care fields.

Women domestic and care workers face triple discrimination: they are women, mostly migrants, and exploited. They are especially vulnerable because of the violation of their labor rights, which is explicitly reflected in current legislation.

The Domestic Service appears as a Special Regime within the General Social Security Regime, which is characterized by deficiencies related to remuneration, contribution and working conditions. “In this sense, we are facing the only group of workers who do not have the right to unemployment benefits in our country,” laments the organization.

To get an idea, in Spain according to the latest Labor Force Survey (EPA), the domestic employment sector employs 637,700 people. Almost all of the positions are occupied by women (96%) and only 420,288 are registered with Social Security.

To this we must add that 42% of the workers have foreign nationality and as it is mainly in the private sphere, it is a job that largely deals with women in an irregular situation.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Europe

Peace Education and the Pandemic: Global Perspectives (video now available)

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article from the Global Campaign for Peace Education

On April 13, 2020, the International Institute on Peace Education  and Global Campaign for Peace Education hosted a zoom webinar on “Peace Education and the Pandemic: Global Perspectives.”  More than 550 people from 72 different countries registered for the event, which was also live-streamed on Facebook. A dozen acclaimed peace educators from around the world shared unique perspectives on the systemic violence and injustices COVID-19 has revealed and how they are using peace education to respond to these and other critical issues. [Editor’s note: The dozen educators came from USA, Austria, Puerto Rico, South Africa, China, Nigeria, Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and South Korea. A list with their bios, and topics can be found here].

Video of Webinar

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Question for this article:

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

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The webinar explored two broad agendas.  First, it presented an opportunity to hear how peace educators around the world are responding in the moment. How are peace educators facilitating the much-needed learning required for self-care, resilience, and adaptation to a changing reality?  How are we adapting pedagogically to online learning spaces such as zoom (and what new social injustices have these rapid transitions revealed related to educational inequity)?  How are we keeping safe physical distance while maintaining social connections?  How are we navigating the trauma, anxiety, and fear caused by a pandemic that exposes our somatic vulnerability, as well as the vulnerability of our social, political and economic systems?

The webinar also presented an opportunity to collectively rethink urgent future agendas for peace education.  This global pandemic has brought into sharp focus many of the concerns, possibilities, and challenges that peace education has been pursuing for decades. Presenters shared critical perspectives and developed clear connections between COVID-19 and “other pandemics” including war, poverty, patriarchy, and nationalism.  All presenters explored the role of peace education in addressing these issues.  Most importantly, most addressed how peace education might prepare citizens with the knowledge, capacities, and skills to envision, design, a build preferred social, political, and economic systems.

Watch the video of the webinar here.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, global, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

“Education Nobel”, Global Teachers’ Prize includes three Brazilian teachers.

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article by Débora Garofalo on the website of Universo Online

Despite the alarming news of the last few days, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we received excellent news last week: three Brazilian teachers, are on the list of the TOP 50 of the biggest award for teachers in the world and considered the “Nobel of Education”, it is the Global Teacher Prize, announced by the Varkey Foundation, organizer/sponsor of the UNESCO partnership award.


Photos from the site of Global Teacher Prize

In particular, it is a gift for me, since I was the first Brazilian woman and the first South American to arrive as a finalist in 2019, in the TOP 10. It recognized my work of robotics with scrap that consists of collecting garbage from the streets, materials and equipment recyclables in robotics prototypes, a job that ranked me among the best teachers in the world. The award was an incredible experience for me! In this same edition of the prize, we had Professor Jayse Ferreira, from Itambé, Pernambuco, among the TOP 50, with the winner being Professor Peter Tabishi, from Kenya.

This demonstrates the importance of recognizing and valuing teachers. The three finalist Brazilians of the 2020 edition, Doani, Francisco and Lília are public school teachers and their works were selected by an international jury. The work of these teachers has in common the engagement of students, mainly from poor areas with low income, in significant and transformative activities.

Discover the work of the Brazilian finalists

Doani Emanuela Bertan works as a bilingual teacher of Portuguese and Brazilian Sign Language. The school where she teaches is located in Campinas, São Paulo, in a poor area with high dropout rates. Doani and her colleagues started looking for new strategies to optimize learning. She teaches LIBRAS the Brazilian sign language system for her hearing impaired students and started promoting video calls to answer her questions and concerns in daily classes.

These online tutorials have become bilingual video classes, allowing knowledge to spread outside the school environment. In addition to using technology as a tool, they allow flexible learning times and spaces, they support parents and families, and they enable new educational experiences.

All of her classes have been uploaded to a YouTube channel and everyone now has free access. Her school stands out for its high enrollment of students with hearing impairments and teachers who promote LIBRAS as an effective inclusion tool. Doani’s commitment has led her to go beyond formal working hours and take advantage of the opportunities that technology allows.

Francisco Celso de Freitas is a history teacher, specialist in inclusive education and instructor of social mediators. He works at the Educational Center of the Santa María Penitentiary Unit, in the city of Brasília, where young people can attend classes from prison.

Francisco is the founder and coordinator of the RAP Project (Resocialization, Autonomy and Protagonism), that uses the musicality of rap and poetry as an emancipatory pedagogical tool capable of promoting the values ​​of a culture of peace and human rights with historical ties.

The project serves about 150 adolescents (boys and girls), kept in the Unit of the Federal District of Santa Maria, who have had problems with the law, sometimes due to acts of violence, and who may be prone to self-harm and suicide attempts. The project’s young people benefited from socioeconomic education and rehabilitation, recording videos, participating in music and culture festivals and the resources produced by the project, such as music, video clips and e-books, that are put online for free so that others could enjoy benefits.

(Click here for the original article in Portuguese)

Questions for this article:

What is the relation between peace and education?

Francisco has received wide recognition and awards for the RAP project. He has participated in conferences and visited schools to give lectures on the value of this form of social mediation and resocialization, to combat the use and abuse of drugs, and to face various forms of prejudice and the decriminalization of urban culture.

In addition, he accompanies the youth after they complete their period in the Penitentiary Unit, to ensure that they will not return to the same cycle of violence that led them there. Most of the graduates have managed to reintegrate into society and some have dedicated themselves to rap, making presentations, recording albums and video clips with messages about freedom and meeting the demands of young people. Despite the harsh reality, Francisco has been able to inspire and motivate his students so that they understand that education is the path to new opportunities in life.

Lília Melo grew up in a disadvantaged area and since childhood she wanted to contribute to reducing social differences. She found her way in teaching. Lília Melo teaches poor children and young people in a needy and often violent area of ​​Belém, in northern Brazil, where murders, drug trafficking and rape are common.

To help her students deal with the situation, Lília wrote a project entitled “Black youth from the periphery of extermination to protagonism” on improving art at school and in the community. She started offering weekend workshops on drum, capoeira, dance, theater, poetry, some at school, others on the streets and squares, which formed ties with the local community. After Lília wrote in the local media about her students being too poor to have access to Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie, local companies got together and funded 400 tickets so that young people could watch the film.

From the collection of photos and videos that narrated the film’s event, the idea arose to produce a documentary, which received several awards. Lília decided to reinvest the funds received in the purchase of equipment. They bought cameras, lenses and a new production was made by young students at the school.

The debates helped to reinforce the film’s message and reflect on the importance of representation in fiction. Eventually, the students themselves became protagonists as universities, museums and companies became interested and got in touch to listen to students and learn their stories, inviting them to give lectures. Instead of being quiet in an auditorium, students went there to be heard.

All of Lília’s projects were carried out with little infrastructure and little equipment. The school significantly increased enrollment rates, the dropout rate decreased and learning outcomes improved. Many of their students have become leaders in the arts, protagonists of their own history, being an inspiration to their community.

The above information about teachers’ work has been taken from the Global Teacher Prize website.

I think that being in the top 50 is a gift. These teachers were selected from more than 12,000 submissions from 140 countries, and they deserve our full recognition. We will be cheering, because they are deserving of everything they have been doing for Education.

Now, they become part of a group of 300 world ambassador professors, together with the finalists of previous editions of the award, with intense participation and annual meeting in different countries for the expansion and exchange of knowledge.

Being recognized among the best teachers in the world totally changes our conception of the role of teacher and increases our responsibility to continue to strive for quality education and equity for all.

All the teachers who go through this experience continue to serve as an example, among them, we can highlight the teachers Marcio Batista, Rubens Ferronato, Jayse Ferreira, Diego Mahfouz and Valter Pereira and many others who promote difference and are agents of transformation. We need to recognize, value and support our teachers. Congratulations, teachers, for transforming lives!

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

Venezuela pays tribute to the genius who made music an instrument for liberation, José Antonio Abreu

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from Venezuela television

The Venezuelan people are paying tribute to the genius who made music an instrument for liberation, José Antonio Abreu, on the second anniversary of his death, according to the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in his Twitter social network user @NicolasMaduro.

Abreu was an outstanding Venezuelan musician, who conceived the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela. He was born in the city of Valera, Trujillo state, on May 7, 1939.

(Click here for the original article in Spanish.)

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Question for this article:

What place does music have in the peace movement?

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He served as Ambassador for Peace and Goodwill at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) due to the social impact and cultural of his work, especially in those countries determined to lower the levels of poverty, illiteracy, marginality and exclusion in their children and youth population.

Jose Antonio Abreu was also the architect of a model for music education and social inclusion, a model that has been replicated in more than 70 countries on the five continents: Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, according to a press release from the Simón Bolívar Musical Foundation published on its website.

This new model, created 44 years ago and known as the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela, involved 1,012,077 boys, girls and young people from low-income social strata.

Through the individual and collective practice of music and the creation of nuclei and academic centers of the country, this cultural organization has become a comprehensive platform to prepare citizens in the concept of a culture of peace and justice.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America