… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …
An article by Myrian Castello, Fábrica dos Sonhos (the Dream Factory)
Every two years the Spirit of Humanity Forum (www.sohforum.org) brings together leaders from around the world to talk about love, peace and humanity, to empower people and encourage a lasting transformation in the world.
This year the forum took place in Reykjavik, Iceland, and I was fortunate to be one of the invited guests. The Forum featured a one-day pre-event focused on education in which we talked about the possibilities of building an education based on multiple values such as love, empathy, hope and courage. Some of the questions were “What is the purpose of education?” And “Where do we begin to change?”
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In the following days we heard the speech of the President of Iceland, which was full of humanity, telling about the history of his life in a very welcoming way. He shared with us the changes needed in the world beginning with each person, including himself and he ended with a poem written by him. We then heard panels with people sharing their stories and took part in various workshops geared toward love, transformation and culture of peace.
In response to one of the questions, “How should we be so that there is peace?” we talked about the power of relationships and how we need to understand relationships at different levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, nature, planetary), the importance of the energy you bring to a conversation and how it is possible even sitting in an auditorium for a speaker to transform the stage into a circle of viewers by leading the conversation and sharing the journey.
What remained was “We are created by life as we have created it” and the importance of establishing connections and giving support to people and relationships. Coexistence, understanding what makes us human and connection are certainly important themes for being, becoming and making peace.