Introduction

Peace Education means to learn about and to learn for peace.

Learning about peace means obtaining knowledge and understanding of what goes on at these different levels, what contributes to peace, what damages it, what leads to war, what does 'peace' mean on each level anyway, what is my role in it, and how are the different levels connected?

Learning for peace means learning the skills, attitudes and values that one needs in order to contribute to peace and to help maintain it. This means for example learning to deal with conflicts without the recourse to violence, learning to think creatively, learning to apply the methods of active non-violence or learning to deal with cultural differences in a constructive way.

The word 'education' sounds very formal to many of us. In many languages the word can be translated in several ways, one for example implying a school setting, another suggesting a parent-child relationship. We are using the term here for any consciously undertaken activity that facilitates learning. This could be workshops on a camp, study sessions at a board meeting, training courses or seminars, but also anything that workcamp leaders do, officially or informally, to help people learn from their workcamp experience.

Peace Education in SCI

Does peace education have a more specific meaning in SCI? Yes it does!

• SCI has seen its workcamps as a form of peace action and of peace education. People learn about and for peace on workcamps, because they are living and working in an international group, they meet up with people who are willing to do voluntary work and meet people from different cultures, and they get acquainted with local situations, mechanisms and activities that are relevant to peace or its opposite. Workcamps are an ideal context for peace education.
• Workcamps are also an ideal setting for organised, more specific educational activities, such as workshops or study sessions. They are ideal for many reasons. You have an international group of people to participate in discussions, which means a wealth of opinions, different experiences, perspectives and information. You can expect a general interest from the group in peace issues. Workcamps are usually places where the group works together with a local organisation, which means the topic of a workshop can easily be linked to their work and so be made very 'real'. The links between theory and practice can be made very clear. Also the group and its efforts to live and work together provide material and illustrations for the study activities.
• Also, and not separately from the other two points, SCI has values, a spirit, a history and a vision to share through workcamps and in any other context where SCI manifests itself. We have a tradition of non-violence, internationalism, voluntarism, anti-militarism, practical solidarity and putting ideals into practice. We have specific answers to a lot of questions around peace, although they are not set in stone. We give answers by what we do and how we do it.
• SCI trains its workcamp leaders or coordinators, its LTV's and volunteers sent to conflict areas, to be peace workers. We want our volunteers to do their work in a spirit of non-violence and internationalism and to actively contribute to a culture of peace in the context they will be working in. We ask them to think about how their leadership style, their way of communicating and their interaction with their environment can reflect the spirit and values of SCI.