Tumbaco, a typical Ecuadorian town, located only 15 kilometers to the east of Quito, was the chosen venue to host a Facilitation Workshop on the Learning to Live Together Programme.
The group was composed of 22 participants from 11 different institutions, organizations and religious groups carrying out different programs for children and youth living in socially vulnerable conditions, belonging to dysfunctional families, and facing violence, abuse and addiction on daily basis.
The workshop, which was held from 22 to 25 February 2018, aimed at training teachers, educators, social workers, and volunteers to promote a culture of peace to help prevent violence against children and youth in educational institutions, religious communities, and community centers in different areas of Quito.
During the 3-days workshop, participants got familiar with the main concepts of Learning to Live Together, its methodology and framework. They reflected on the influence violence has on children and youth in their particular context, and the role that value-based education can play to prevent it.
Through the different activities, participants gain the knowledge and practical skills to design an ethics education program based on Learning to Live Together and customized to the needs and realities of the children they work with and their communities. In this way, participants could visualize how to integrate an ethics education program in their current projects, and design concrete plans to implement the program in a systematic way.
The Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) Ecuador, and Arigatou International Geneva will provide support to the creation of a local Community of Practice.
The workshop was facilitated by Learning to Live Together Trainers Ms. Mercedes Román, Senior Adviser for the GNRC Latin America and the Caribbean and Ms. Mónica Bernal, Family Therapist and Advisor; together with Ms. Maribel Leon, Director and Educator, Pastoral de la U.E. San Luis Gonzaga, and Mr. Marco Laguatasi, Educator and Coordinador of GNRC Ecuador, both Learning to Live Together Facilitators.
We thank GNRC for their support in co-organizing this workshop, the facilitators for their commitment and dedication, and the participants for their enthusiasm and friendly spirit of collaboration.
Arigatou International Geneva facilitated a workshop on Ethics Education for 100 professionals from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and several other higher education institutions in Kenya on 15 March 2018. The workshop is part of a conference jointly organized by Globethics.net and the Catholic University of Eastern Africa on Integrating Ethics in Higher Education that took place from 13-16 March 2018 at CUEA, Kenya.
The Ethics Education workshop involved over 100 professionals from the University including the Vice Chancellor and senior administration, academic and non-academic staff.
During the full day workshop Arigatou International Geneva introduced the Ethics Education Programme and its Ethics Education Framework as an example of Ethics Education and engaged the participants in understanding ethics, pedagogical approaches to ethics education and how ethics education can help build an inclusive and diverse learning community as part of their commitment to integrating ethics in education.
Both Catholic University of Eastern Africa and Arigatou International Geneva showed interest to followup the training with future collaborations.
The workshop took place within the framework a recently signed an Memorandum of Understanding between Arigatou International Geneva and the Globeethics.net Foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland to further ethics and ethics education.
Arigatou International was represented at the conference by Dr. Dorcas Kiplagat from GNRC Secretariat in Nairobi and Mr. Suchith Abeyewickreme. Mr. Abeyewickreme together with Ms. Mary Kangethe and Ms. Anne Waichinga both Trainers of the Learning to Live Together Programme led the Ethics Education Workshop as co-facilitators.
Mrs. Maria Lucia Uribe, Director of Arigatou International Geneva participated in the Global Mindfulness Summit that took place in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 23 to 25 February 2018.
The summit, organized by the Sati Pasala Foundation with the cooperation of governmental, non-governmental and cooperate-sector institutions, brought together speakers and panelists from around the world for three days of influential discussions regarding mindfulness.
The speakers and panelists at the Summit came from all sectors of society, as it was an assembly of academics, scientists, management consultants, government leaders and politicians, diplomats, medical specialists, school leaders, and religious leaders of all faiths.
The summit served to build partnerships among different nations, cultures, ethnicities, and religions to spread the message of the power of mindfulness and the influence it can have as a peacebuilding mechanism. As Venerable U Dhammajiva stated in his opening statement, “All the parts, all the religious and other groups must come together, and work together, and mindfulness binds it all together.”
During the three days, there were discussions regarding the role mindfulness can play with promoting diversity and acceptance, helping our environment and promoting sustainability, strengthening children’s spirituality to end violence against children, and the positive mental and physical impacts mindfulness can have on a person.
Mrs. Maria Lucia Uribe presented about the importance of spirituality in young children and how violence harms this feature as children grow and develop. As she described in her presentation, spirituality is “an innate and natural capacity…[it is] a capacity to see ourselves as part of something bigger than us and that helps us move beyond, [and] to transcend.” Violence hurts children not only physically and mentally, but devastates their spiritual wellbeing and their trust, connection, and respect for other people. Spirituality goes hand in hand with mindfulness, as it promotes the concept of “moving beyond,” creating an emphasis on ultimate fulfillment, as opposed to just immediate satisfaction.
“Ultimately, mindfulness as a tool for spiritual development should help children and youth to develop their sense of belonging, of being, of connecting with others, of becoming who they want to become and transform themselves and their societies”, said Mrs. Uribe when looking at the connection between mindfulness and spirituality.
When dealing with the repercussions of violence, mindfulness goes beyond just allowing the victim heal, but can also be used as a preventative strategy to stopping violence before it happens. Caregivers and parents should use mindfulness when raising a child, as it allows them to see the impact their actions have on the child, and how it might hurt their child’s spiritual wellbeing.
Thanks go to the conference organizers and other presenters for organizing the event and inviting Arigatou International.
A diverse group of twenty-one teachers, school counselors, educators and social workers participated in a Facilitator Training Workshop on the Learning to Live Together (LTLT) Programme in Skopje, Macedonia, with the common aim to tackle violence and discrimination against children from different ethnic and national groups.
The 4-day workshop, which was organized by the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) and the First Children's Embassy in the World – "Megjashi" (FCEWM) with the support of Arigatou International Geneva, took place from 2 to 5 March 2018, immediately after a Regional Meeting between the GNRC, End Child Poverty in Partnership and FCEWM titled “Mobilizing Faith Communities to End Child Poverty and Violence against Children”.
While the Regional Meeting aimed to develop a relevant community mobilization and advocacy strategy to address child poverty and violence against children, the subsequent Facilitator Training Workshop offered an efficient tool to reach these objectives and to develop and strengthen the local GNRC.
The Facilitator Training Workshop aimed to build capacities in teachers and social workers on how to use the LTLT manual in their work with children and young people with different ethnic backgrounds. Their role as multipliers of the LTLT Programme will ultimately contribute to advocating for quality education for all children in Macedonia.
The participants had the opportunity to explore and discover the key concepts, learning modules, methodologies and learning process of the LTLT Programme, gaining a better understanding of the Ethics Education Approach.
“During the workshop we guided participants in the exploration of methodologies to stimulate participation, horizontal communication and critical thinking in children, as well as ways to nurture spirituality in children and to build a safe learning environment for them, offering a new pedagogical approach for the participants to work with children and youth” said Ms. Laura Molnar, who facilitated the workshop together with Ms. Ana Žnidarec Čučković.
Based on their local needs, participants elaborated a customized ethics education program based on the LTLT Programme and exercised their facilitation skills by carrying out ethics education sessions for their colleagues. They also created action plans focused on addressing violence against children, bullying and the discrimination of Roma, Albanian or disadvantaged children in schools and in the local communities. The action plans also aimed to promote the rights of the child, especially their right to quality education and participation.
The workshop also helped participants visualize how the implementation of the LTLT Programme with the children they work with, could help meet their specific needs, like nurturing ethical values that are conducive to living respectfully together with people from different cultural and religious backgrounds. After the workshop, a community of practice was established to strengthen the network and support the implementation plans.
Arigatou International Geneva thanks the GNRC and FCEWM for their support and commitment; Ms. Laura Molnar and Ana Žnidarec Čučković, both official trainers of the Learning to Live Together Programme, for their outstanding professionalism in carrying out this workshop, and, and all the participants for their enthusiasm.
El día viernes 23 de marzo 2018, nuestros estudiantes realizaron alfombras y altares, cada uno con su toque original. ¡Felicitaciones!.jpg)
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