From UNESCO
Fundación Semilla has developed a play kit that uses emotions, empathy and diversity to help prevent violence in schools. The teaching tool, part of a school violence prevention project by UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago), will be presented in Ottawa, Canada at the Third Forum on Global Citizenship Education from March 8-10, 2017.
With support from OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, the play kit was tested in late 2016 in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Its primary objective is to help education community stakeholders to identify and develop emotional skills, recognize and value diversity, and experience basic elements of empathy, especially vulnerable students.
Fundación Semilla President Marcelo Trivelli will present the tool in Canada as part of the regional school violence prevention project, which is being promoted by the Chilean foundation in conjunction with OREALC/UNESCO Santiago. The regional project highlights teachers’ fundamental role in preventing school violence and addresses the need for teacher training on global citizenship education, adapting curricula and other relevant issues.
It is hoped that the tool will form part of the school violence prevention strategies to be implemented, providing teachers with practical help and enabling the extraction of additional data that can be used as the basis for developing public policy recommendations.
The organizations’ work will be complemented by an expert workshop in Latin America scheduled for the first half of 2017. At the workshop, this issue, which is so challenging to the region, will be explored in depth in order to identify the specific competencies, knowledge and attitudes that the region’s teachers need in order to put school violence prevention tools into practice.
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The Third Forum on Global Citizenship Education (GCED): The role of teachers” and UNESCO’s “The Review Forum for the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD: Application and innovation” are part of UNESCO’s Week for Peace and Sustainable Development. The week (March 6-10, 2017) is bringing together more than 400 experts, professionals and political figures responsible for ESD and GCED. Participants come from public sectors, NGOs and private sectors from around the world.
Organized by UNESCO and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the event focuses on how ESD and GCED contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), primarily Goal 4.7 of Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education. At the meeting, experts will examine pedagogical approaches and teaching practices for promoting these modalities.
The week is an opportunity for people to discuss trends and innovation in ESD and GCED approaches and teaching practices and to share good practice. The event has been designed to maximize the participants’ opportunities to interact, create networks, debate and engage in unguided discussion.