The peace-agreement was signed officially but the violence has not stopped yet. This is why we want to implement a School of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (ESPERE) and organize a cultural festival to promote togetherness, forgiveness and reconciliation. The school generates citizenship-skills to contribute to the peace process without violence, addressing individuals and not only institutions. This project should take place in Yacopi where the conflict has been severe and destructive.
The challenges of the post-conflict stage in Colombia, highlight the need for a stronger and renewed citizenship education in the country. This type of education should promote the empowerment of active and critical citizens who are willing and capable of resolving future conflicts in their lives and communities. As in Yacopi the governemt was a long time absent and the conflict destroyed a lot of social structures, many cultural and educational offers still missing.
The idea is to teach teenagers to "live in peace" and to give individuals an opportunity to understand the ethical values and the moral consequences involved in something as complex as forgiveness and reconciliation. Participants are the main change agents and the process is not an imposition of outsiders talking about laws or institutions but the focus is on the individual decision to forgive and reconcile about violence. This approach invites to build reconciliation and the community together.
Reconstructing interactions, thus leading to an epistemological rupture of a reactive discourse to instead access collective-thought reality. This goes beyond the normalized refuge of a reality narrated independently and reactively. ESPERE offers narrative alternatives through advice or orientation, guided reading, group dynamics, questions, dramatizations, rituals and tasks. In this project we would like to focus on adolescents who are the next generation that can live and promote peace.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
