June 2010

The idea of having an exchange visit of peace education practitioners and policymakers came about during a conversation between two GPPAC Peace Education Working Group members at the International Peace Education Conference in Nairobi in the early days of December 2008. While talking about their own experiences, Irina Brunova-Kalisetska from the Ukraine and Ivana Gayovich from Montenegro realised that the multicultural context in which they implement peace education and peaceful coexistence projects was similar on many levels.

A year and a half later, after intensive planning and successful fundraising in both regions, the first part of the exchange programme took place in Podgorica, Montenegro.

From April 21 to 25, 2010 the Nansen Dialogue Center-Montenegro hosted a group of teachers and Ministry of Education and civil society representatives from the Westerrn CIS. The series of events, which included meetings with school teachers, peer mediators, visits to the Ministry of Education , the Bureau for Educational Services and a Mediation Centre provided a good opportunity for the group from the Western CIS to introduce their work in the region and to learn about the specifics of the peace education programmes in Montenegro. An excellent cross-regional exchange was deepened through the work of mixed groups discussing institutional collaboration and support to PE implementation, school mediation and multi-ethnic dialogue projects.

In mid-May the partners from the Western Balkans paid a reciprocal visit to Crimea, Ukraine. The group of visitors was comprised of peace education practitioners, principals and teachers-mediators from primary and secondary schools of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina; representatives of Ministries of Education including the Deputy Minister of Education of Serbia, a Senior Counsellor from the Ministry of Education of Montenegro and representative from the Bureau for Educational Services of Montenegro.

Key GPPAC actors in the Western Balkans - the Nansen Dialogue Centre Montenegro and Nansen Dialogue Centre Serbia presented achievements of Nansen Dialogue Network in the field of Peace Education and Inter-ethnic dialogue, together with the colleagues from NDC Sarajevo and NDC Banjaluka (Bosnia-Herzegovina).

The GPPAC delegation from the Western Balkans was welcomed and hosted by the members of the Western CIS GPPAC network which included the Integration and Development Center - the key GPPAC partner in the region implementing peace education activities, as well as other CSOs, teachers, psychologists and peace education practitioners from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Russian Federation and Poland.

The Crimean part of the exchange programme included knowledge sharing on all the levels: plenary work at the Ministry of Education of Crimea, visits to the institutions that implement Peace Education projects from kindergarten to university level, theoretical and practical presentations of partners' activity in post- conflict societies and in the context of potential conflict. The participants also had a chance to look into the details of the multicultural environment in Crimea, and learned about traditional historical and contemporary instruments of coexistence in a multi-lingual, and multi-confessional context.

One of the key outcomes of the exchange programme was the agreement to sign a Memorandum of Cooperation in the area of education and science between the Ministry of Education of Crimea and the Ministry of Education of Montenegro as well as between the Serbian and Crimean Ministries.

The entire exchange programme, both in Montenegro and in Ukraine was full of mutual knowledge sharing on peace education tools and practical methodologies; but it also brought the development of personal connections and friendships which are central to further collaboration between the groups.

During the process the participants identified and developed different possibilities on how to move the inter-regional cooperation forward. They plan to continue to promote a culture of peace at the level of communities, through creating partnership agreements on exchanging knowledge and experience between secondary schools, CSOs and peace educators. This cooperation will also continue on the level of educational authorities and Ministries of Education from both regions. The participants expressed their confidence that this extremely fruitful cross-regional partnership will continue beyond this first round of exchange visits.