Regional Summaries of CRE Activity
Here you can view information about conflict resolution and peace education work being done in countries from various regions of the world. We are still adding to our database, so the number of country and project listings for a particular region should grow over time.
World Region: Northern America
Read more about this region in Wikipedia.
Active Countries in the Region Include:
Canada
Summary of Activities
The Canadian Conflict Prevention Initiative is part of the Global partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). Affecting changes in education at the Provincial/Territorial levels will be a key objective of Provincial Culture of Peace Programs and Annual Provincial Peace Education Conferences. Annual Provincial Peace Education Conferences currently take place in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
For a summary of CRE activity in this area please review the OCDRCM website profile for this country.
Legislative and Policy Initiatives:
In Canada, education is Provincial (rather than Federal/National). Accordingly, education legislation is the mandate of the thirteen Provincial/Territorial Governments. There is a Canadian Ministers of Education Council which meets annually to discuss matters of common interest. It is our understanding that no Canadian Governmental body is proposing to establish any legislation or policy initiatives with respect to Conflict Resolution or Peace Education.
CRE Resources:
An excellent summary of recent developments in peace education and the culture of peace program in Canada, available for any organizations and individuals interested in advancing peace education and the Culture of Peace and Non-violence Program in their area, is available at http://www.peace.ca/EVOLVINGCANADIANMODELFORPEACE2005.ppt in English and at http://www.peace.ca/CCOPPportuguese2005.ppt in Portuguese.
See also these resources:
Inventory of University and Other Peace Education Programs in Canada at http://www.peace.ca/canpeaceeducation.htm (this is extensive)
Inventory of Peace Education Sample Curricula http://www.peace.ca/curricula.htm
Canadian Peace Education Strategy http://www.peace.ca/conference2002summary.htm
Fourth Annual Peace Education Conference in Canada: Peace Pedagogy – Educating Educators To Teach Peace http://www.peace.ca/CanadianAgenda2005.htm
Active CRE Organization:
Canadian Culture of Peace Program (CCOPP)
It is the shorter term goal of CCOPP and the network of Canadian Peace Educators to place Peace Education prominently on the Canadian Agenda - “to cultivate public awareness and political support for the introduction of peace education into all spheres of education, including non-formal education, throughout Canada and to promote the education of all teachers to teach for peace”. It is the longer term goal to assure Peace Education is integrated into all curricula by the end of the decade - “the goal of the campaign is to assure that all educational systems throughout Canada will educate for a culture of peace”. Peace education starts at home.
Active CRE Organization:
Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC)
The Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC), is a network of Canadian non-governmental organizations and institutions, academics and other individuals from a wide range of sectors, including humanitarian assistance, development, peacekeeing training, experts’ roster, conflict resolution, governance, peace, faith communities, and human rights. CPCC has been working since 1994 to formulate policy and operational directions for Canadian NGOs involved in peacebuilding, in collaboration with other relevant actors. The network is engaged in processes of dialogue with government and a broad range of individuals and civil society organizations to articulate Canadian directions in the area of peacebuilding, and to strengthen civil society input into peacebuilding policy and program development. CPCC Working Groups bring together those interested in particular thematic areas. Current Working Groups are Small Arms, Children and Armed Conflict, Gender and Peacebuilding, Conflict Prevention and Peace Operations. CPCC also participates in the Canadian Conflict Prevention Initiative and acts as the North America regional initiator in the Global partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). CPCC activities and the operation of CPCC secretariat are funded by Foreign Affairs Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency and through the membership fees and other contributions of member organizations and individuals.
Active CRE Organization:
Conflict Resolution Network Canada
CR Network Canada develops, promotes and extends the use of conflict resolution and restorative justice processes such as negotiation, mediation, consensus-building and peacemaking circles. As Canada’s largest broad-based conflict resolution organization, They encourage conflict resolution in schools, workplaces, communities, criminal justice settings, the environment, media, government, and international settings.
Active CRE Organization:
Peaceful Schools International
Peaceful Schools International, a Canadian charitable organization, was established in 2001 by Hetty van Gurp, an internationally recognized educator and author. A network of dedicated, locally-based Regional Coordinators provides support to schools that have declared a commitment to creating and maintaining a culture of peace.
PSI has over 240 member schools around the world! In these schools, students, teachers and community members work together to ensure that everyone feels safe, respected and valued.
Costa Rica
Summary of Activities
Costa Ricans take pride in their country’s reputation as a peaceful nation, with more than half a century without a standing army or other defense arrangement since 1948. Current President Oscar Arias played a fundamental role in the Central American Peace Plan in the 1980s, for which he is best known throughout the Americas as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Located within a region historically wrought with social and political conflict, Costa Rica is internationally regarded as a peaceful, prosperous country.
As such, Costa Rica is home to the United Nations’ chartered University for Peace, where hundreds of international students graduate each year from prestigious programs including Sustainable Development, Conflict Resolution, Peace Education and International Peace Studies. In 1997, Costa Rica passed a law that requires peace education is offered in every classroom. In September 2009, the Costa Rican government will host the annual international Summit of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace, the first government in the world to host a Summit of this kind.
It is in this national framework of peace that Conflict Resolution Education and Peace Education are received openly in the school system and within the highest levels of government. The Academy for Peace has been instrumental in bringing about a workable curriculum for Peace Education in the Costa Rican school system, as well as establishing legislature to set up significant peace infrastructure within the Costa Rican government. Currently, the Academy for Peace works with 13 schools in the county of Santa Ana, teaching the practice of BePeace, which fulfills the peace education law. With the support of Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Education, the Santa Ana BePeace model will be replicated in the public school system throughout the country, strengthening this culture of peace and ensuring that this peace skill is passed on from generation to generation.
Legislative and Policy Initiatives:
The Academy for Peace of Costa Rica has been successful in creating a congressional Bill, which in the Fall of 2008 faces no governmental opposition and is currently included to be voted on in the present session of the Costa Rican national legislature. When passed, this Bill will establish peace infrastructure within the Costa Rican government, including the creation of the Ministry for Justice and Peace (formerly the Ministry of Justice) and detailing public-private collaboration between the Costa Rican government, non-governmental organizations including the Academy for Peace, and Pro-Peace organizations in Costa Rica.
The piece of legislation detailed above serves as the structural basis for establishing peace infrastructure in the Costa Rican government, and providing the foundation for working relationships between the public and private sector toward the creation of a culture of peace. This peace infrastructure is the first part of a two-pronged approach in disseminating a culture of peace throughout Costa Rica.
The second aspect of this approach relates specifically to the Academy for Peace’s grassroots work in the public school system, which will be extended to the national level with the recently-acquired support of the Ministry of Public Education (MEP), and funded in part by the private Costa Rican organization, the Association of Businesses for Development (AED). The Academy for Peace is currently working with MEP and AED to design and implement a national curriculum for peace education in the Costa Rican school system, based on replicating the BePeace model currently established in the public school system of the county of Santa Ana. The Academy for Peace will train peace educators who will work with MEP in the national public school system to extend the BePeace method throughout the country.
The Ministry of Public Education sends teachers on paid time to the 40-hour BePeace Course and allows Academy trainers to train students, teachers and parents throughout the school year. Costa Rica’s Minister of Justice, Laura Chinchilla, has also played an influential role in helping our peace legislature make its way into the national congressional body to be voted on.
CRE Resources:
The Academy for Peace has designed all of its own curriculum and training materials for 40-hour training courses for facilitators and teachers (course manual created), 9-hour parents’ courses, weekend workshops for students, refresher courses in the schools and weekly lesson plans for classroom courses with students. The weekly course curriculum in the schools includes: 4 sessions on cultivating internal peace, 4 sessions on respect (to ourselves, to others and to the environment), and 4 sessions on autonomy, specifically in regards to dealing with anger. Other curriculum themes currently being developed include: acceptance, connection, contribution and appreciation.
Contact:
Rita Marie Johnson -
Active CRE Organization:
Academy for Peace of Costa Rica
Description of organization: The Academy for Peace of Costa Rica is a non-profit non-governmental organization (supported by the Rasur Foundation) located in Costa Rica working with local communities and the Costa Rican national government to create a culture of peace. Our two-pronged approach includes the establishment of peace infrastructure in government and the dissemination of the BePeace practice (synergistic combination of HeartMath, founded by the Institute of HeartMath, and Marshall B. Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication) in the local school system to pass this peace skill from generation to generation.
Number of staff members: Office Staff: 5; plus school trainers and facilitators: 8 = 13 total
Publications: The Return of Rasur, written by Rita Marie Johnson; BePeace 40-Hour Course Manual; BePeace Facilitator’s Guidebook; periodic newsletters available on website www.academyforpeacecr.org
Description of Organization’s work in Conflict Resolution Education/ Peace Education:
Within Higher Education (university/college; ages 18 and higher):
Lead informational workshops with the United Nations’ chartered University for Peace; recruit university students in the Psychology field from Universidad Latina and Universidad Nacional to work with us in our school program.
Within Early childhood to pre-university (K-12, youth ages 0-18):
The BePeace practice is currently taught in 13 schools in the Costa Rican county of Santa Ana, following an extensive and ongoing training process for teachers, students and parents. Utilizing our original BePeace curriculum, Academy for Peace trainers teach a 1-hour session per week to the 5th grade classes in each school, in addition to refresher courses for teachers who have previously received the 40-hour BePeace training, and a separate 9-hour course for parents. Supported by Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Education, we are currently in the planning stages to extend BePeace methodology throughout the national public school system in Costa Rica.
United States
Summary of Activities
A great deal of activity is occurring in the United States. This includes work in many individual schools, as well as statewide efforts that coordinate Conflict Resolution Education work across States or within districts.
CRE Resources:
The full-text document catalog hosted by this site is a good place to start when seeking CRE resources.
See http://www.creducation.org/catalog/
Active CRE Organization:
Conflict Management in Higher Education Resource Center
The primary objective of the Campus Conflict Resolution Resources project (Campus-adr.org) has been to significantly increase administrator, faculty, staff and student awareness of, access to, and use of conflict resolution information specifically tailored to the higher education context. The project came into being thanks to seed funds from the Conflict Resolution Information Source project followed by a major 3-year grant from the federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Examples of useful resources include searchable collections of syllabi, roleplays, and links to campus conflict resolution programs around North America.
Active CRE Organization:
Columbia University Teachers College Peace Education Centre
The Teachers College Peace Education Center’s (TCPEC) mission is to further the development of the field of peace education, particularly in recognition of the unprecedented need to address issues of security, war and peace, human rights and social justice, sustainable development and ecological balance. The Peace Education Center was established to provide outreach, resourcing, training and in-service education.
It accomplishing its’ mission, the Center conducts research, curricular development and outreach activities in many world regions, working in collaboration with other such centers including Miriam College, Philippines; Lebanese American University, Lebanon; Ukthal University, India; Jordan University for Science and Technology, Jordan; Seisen University, Japan; Kibbutzim College of Education, Israel; and Sabanci University in Turkey. Other working collaborations include: the University for Peace in Costa Rica, UNESCO, the United Nations, and the Global Campaign for Peace Education.
Active CRE Organization:
Council of Global Education
You may be asking yourself: “What has to be done to truly make the world a better place?“ CGE believes that education is the key and that each and every one of us plays an essential role in the education process.
The goal of CGE is to create a world where values such as peace, coexistence, reverence for all forms of life, and responsibility are the norm. Needed is a new education based on new goals for a new and enlightened century. To achieve this goal, CGE has developed a global education model founded upon: Universal Values, Global Understanding, Excellence in All Things, and Service to Humanity.
Furthermore, CGE believes that every person has a stake in the education process and we therefore encourage and facilitate ongoing dialogues, seminars, and training programs in which anyone who is interested in building a better world can participate.
Active CRE Organization:
Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR)
Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR) helps educators create safe, caring, respectful, and productive learning environments. We also help educators work with young people to develop the social skills, emotional competencies, and qualities of character they need to succeed in school and become contributing members of their communities
Active CRE Organization:
Global Issues Resource Center
The Global Issues Resource Center in the Office of Community Continuing Education at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio fosters citizen responsibility through cultivation of a global perspective on critical issues affecting our planet and its people. The Center’s special focus is on sources and management of conflict; the ongoing threats to global security; environmental dilemmas; and issues of diversity and multicultural understanding.
The Center is proud that its initiatives have served over 50,000 educators, students, community leaders and ordinary citizens locally, regionally and nationally since 1986. The Center, located at Cuyahoga Community Colleges Eastern Campus in Cleveland, Ohio, serves through three approaches:
Presenting creative educational programming and custom designed skills training.
Offering unique information resources through its award winning library collections. These multimedia materials infuse evolving contemporary issues into any discipline or agenda.
Serving as a catalyst to forge collaborations and partnerships in effective educational outreach to broad constituencies.
Educational Services
custom-designed skills training workshops for diverse educators;
lectures informing the general public about evolving contemporary issues;
seminars featuring experts in active learning;
interactive programs to serve community and agency needs;
dissemination of unique resources nationwide. (The Center’s collections are online through the Cleveland Public Library electronic catalogue and accessed via the Internet.)
Active CRE Organization:
Global Majority
Global Majority promotes non-violent conflict resolution education, mediation and advocacy. We believe that principled dialogue is imperative and must replace violent conflict if humankind is to thrive.
To promote a fundamentally new manner of thinking in global relations, Global Majority is developing national, regional, and global training seminars and advocacy campaigns that embody our aim to give voice to the global majority that aspires to live in peace.
Recognizing that violence is too often the preferred option for resolving conflict and that the spiral of violence continues to impact innocents, Global Majority invites all supporters to sign our global pledge that asserts:
• Peace can be achieved through the active participation of the global majority;
• Non-violent conflict resolution (NVCR) must be adopted and practiced by all;
• Constructive dialogue, negotiation, mediation, and other forms of non violent conflict resolution can replace military and armed conflict;
• Gender, racial, and ethnic equality must be respected as critical to the achievement of effective cooperation and dialogue among people and should be prioritized in education, government relations, business, and diplomacy;
• Inclusion of diverse stakeholders and interest groups in constructive dialogue is critical to the achievement of durable and non-violent alternatives to violence;
• To be human is to respect the humanity of others. Respect can be cultivated, earned, and modeled;
• Social responsibility must be practiced and promoted by all sectors of the global community including civil society, governments, businesses, labor, religious organizations, academia, the media, and the military;
• Non-violent direct action that is creative and supportive of dialogue should be supported at the local, regional, and global level among individuals, organizations, and networks;
• The practice of peace will build the path to peace.
Active CRE Organization:
Hague Appeal for Peace, Global Campaign for Peace Education
The Hague Appeal for Peace is an international network of organizations and individuals dedicated to the abolition of war and making peace a human right. The Global Campaign for Peace Education was launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference in May 1999. The Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE) seeks to develop the capacities, in teachers and learners, to face challenges of unprecedented proportion: the continued development of weapons of mass destruction, armed conflicts between states and ethnic groups, the spread of racism, gender inequality, community violence, the huge and widening gap between the rich and the poor throughout the globalized economy, massive violations of human rights and the degradation of the environment.
Active CRE Organization:
Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO)
Under the leadership of the Honorable Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, Maryland’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) has a diverse, high-level Advisory Board. MACRO is a court-related agency, which serves as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) resource for the state. MACRO supports innovative dispute resolution programs, and promotes the appropriate use of ADR in every field. MACRO works collaboratively with many others across the state to support efforts to advance effective conflict resolution practices in Maryland’s courts, communities, schools, state and local government agencies, criminal and juvenile justice programs and businesses.
Active CRE Organization:
Michigan Special Education Mediation Program, Dispute Resolution Education Resources Inc.
Young people with special needs depend on the collaborative efforts of parents, educators and professionals to help them succeed. The Michigan Special Education Mediation Program (MSEMP) provides mediation and facilitation services that enable all involved to do their best work. It also conducts workshops that enhance skills in collaborative problem solving.
Since 1996, the MSEMP has helped parents and educators discuss and resolve issues relating to Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs), Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and most recently, resolution sessions. The program provides neutral mediators and facilitators to aid communication during difficult or complex discussions. They always leave the parents and educators to make their own decisions.
MSEMP workshops provide training in skills that improve listening, brainstorming and consensus building. Their goal is to help parents and educators develop solutions on their own in the best interest of the child.
The MSEMP helps all concerned avoid due process hearings and complaints. Mediation and facilitation save time and money and often result in solutions that better fit a child’s circumstances. And MSEMP services are free to users.
Active CRE Organization:
Minnesota Deprtment of Education
Restorative Justice Projects in public schools.
Active CRE Organization:
National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
NAME is the fastest growing professional organization in the United States that has as its sole objective the advocacy of multicultural education as the foundation philosophy of the nation’s educational system from pre-school through higher education.
The National Association for Multicultural Education is committed to a philosophy of inclusion that embraces the basic tenets of cultural pluralism. NAME celebrates cultural and ethnic diversity as a national strength that enriches a society and rejects the view that diversity threatens the fabric of a society.
NAME believes that multicultural education promotes equity for all regardless of culture, ethnicity, race, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, or exceptionality. Thus, fair and full participation in a society’s institutions is paramount as both means and end in NAME’s philosophy.
NAME believes that multicultural education enables the individual to believe in one’s own intrinsic worth and culture, to transcend monoculturalism and, ultimately, to become multicultural. This developmental process is at the center of the individual’s noble quest to define one’s relationship and responsibility to our global society.
Active CRE Organization:
Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management
The Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management is a state govenrment agency that provides grants, training, resources and technical assistance to Ohio’s public schools, colleges, and univerisites on conflict management. They currently are working on two national pilot projects in conflict resolution education in teacher education and in the public schools. They also offer a truancy mediation program in association with the Ohio Supreme Court.
Active CRE Organization:
Peace Praxis Educational Consulting
Mission: “To contribute to the creation of safe, caring and academically successful learning communities.“
Peace Praxis provides Professional Development for educators, school leaders, and higher ed. students and staff in a wide variety of Conflict Resolution Education and Peace Education topics. For example, the Peaceful Schools Institute is a 3-day professional development experience that includes training in: Positive Discipline, Bullying Prevention/Intervention, Diversity Awareness, Conflict De-escalation, and Social and Emotional Learning.
Peace Praxis provides curriculum development in SEL, CRE, Peace Education and Prevention Education. Also offered are consulting services in Social and Emotional Learning and School Climate initiatives.
Training for Students (k-12) includes Peer Mediation, Teambuilding, and Bullying Prevention/Intervention.
Peace Praxis provides peace and justice organizations with training in Nonviolent Organizing, The MAP Model for Social Change, and Peace Education. Contact Christa M. Tinari for inquiries regarding Mediation, Dialogue and Facilitation services for schools and community organizations.
Active CRE Organization:
People's Place: Center for Community Justice
The Center for Community Justice provides Conflict Resolution Classes to youth either mandated through the courts or as part of school and community organizations groups. The class provides students with a new perspective on conflict resolution as well as providing them with alternatives to violence in conflict situations.
Active CRE Organization:
School Mediation Associates
School Mediation Associates is based just outside Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Our mission is to transform schools into safer, more caring, and more effective institutions. Through our work we:
* Encourage young people to become leaders in their schools
* Help students and educators see conflict as an opportunity for personal and institutional growth
* Teach students and educators the skills to resolve conflict non-violently and collaboratively
* Mediate challenging conflicts at educators’ requests
* Disseminate an approach to problem solving that values diversity and respects differences of opinion
* Provide educators with the knowledge, experience and the materials necessary to integrate collaborative conflict resolution processes into their professional practices, their curricula, and their personal lives.
Active CRE Organization:
School Mediation Center-- Life Trax
“Why caring, belonging and resolving conflict productively is important?”
Unresolved conflict is the #1 reason for student absenteeism
Belonging is the most single factor reducing potential for violence
Students need to feel safe before productive learning occurs
Caring is the foundation of respect
Life Trax is an organization that offers training to adults and youth utilizing practical life strategies to meet the demands and changes in an ever-changing world. Practicing productive conflict resolution is essential to maintaining balance in daily life, work and play.
Life Trax teaches simple solutions and provides training and products that increase individual and group performance that meet or exceed your goals.
Active CRE Organization:
Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR)
The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is a professional organization dedicated to enhancing the practice and public understanding of conflict resolution. ACR represents and serves a diverse national and international audience that includes more than 6,000 mediators, arbitrators, facilitators, educators, and others involved in the field of conflict resolution and collaborative decision-making. Anyone interested in the field of conflict resolution is welcome to join. The Association has an Education Section that devoted specifically to CRE work.
One of ACR’s special projects is an annual event known as Conflict Resolution Day. On the third Thursday of October each year, supporters of conflict resolution host events around the United States that build public awareness of conflict resolution concepts, skills and services. More information and tools are available at the ACR website.
