Mallow Rotary in Ireland has just staged a two-day course on peace advocacy. It was presented by Jean
Best and her husband Keith at the Mallow College for Further Education and this was the third successive year when the County Cork-based club has hosted a Peace Advocacy programme.
This peace advocacy and conflict resolution programme seeks to assist young people as they tackle new challenges of modern life, including interacting with the ever-present social media platforms.
For example, 73% of young people who have been bullied by email or text said that they know their tormentors. Left unchallenged, such negativity can lead to poor self- image, or more seriously, to self-harm.
The course participants included teachers and students from seven secondary & post-secondary education institutions in Mallow, Doneraile, Buttevant & Kanturk, as well as Rotarians and Mallow Scouts.
Through her involvement with Rotary as a Peace Officer, in collaboration with her husband Keith and The Peace Centre in Bradford, Jean Best has developed peace conflict resolution strategies with second-level students in mind.
The programme has been integrated into the second level school syllabus in Scotland and Jean was awarded a United Nations Peace Medal in recognition for her work in Peace Advocacy for 2017.
The course programme involves a range of interactive work. It is a sharing experience with an element of peer to peer learning, rather than young people being instructed what to do. The programme sets out to develop the three major skills in conflict resolution:
- Collaborative Conversation.
- Purposeful Listening.
- Purposeful Speaking.
Following the presentation of Peace Advocate Certificates on finishing the course, it is hoped that the newly-minted Peace Advocates will initiate their own projects and put the skills they have developed into practice.
This could range from organising discussion groups, to improving school environments, tackling homophobic language in school, setting up workshops to help other students deal with cyber-bullying or bringing school rivalries together to sort out differences.
In 2018, the peace advocacy group from Coláiste Mhuire, Buttevant in County Cork won first-ever Rotary Britain and Ireland Young Citizen Peacemaker Award for their inspirational work in addressing and tackling the difficulties facing their peers at the school.
As the overall winners, five of the Peace Advocates from Coláiste Mhuire, travelled to Nottingham last May to be presented with their winning trophy and a €500 cheque.
Aoibhe Jones, one the advocates from Buttevant, explained: “Our peace programme focuses on one’s quality of life, in our communities, our homes, our schools and in ourselves.
“We use the skills of purposeful listening and collaborative conversation to recognise, enable and empower our fellow students and ourselves to believe in the expertise of the young to help each other and resolve conflict.”
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