Conflict Resolution Program for Teenager’s Students & Young Adults
Conflict Resolution Program for Teenager’s Students & Young Adults
Since June 2004, IAA began a full-year program on Conflict Resolution, Promotion of Peace and Understanding among Teen aged Students. 90 secondary school students (male and female) enrolled. The program included training courses on non-violence and peaceful building of society, human rights concepts,character-building, team work and project management. In addition, English lessons and computer training. The participants committed themselves to compose projects in that content, and worked on applying these projects in their schools and their own communities.
In the second year of the project, in 2005, (57) high school students continued benefiting from the program. A number of participants in the conflict resolution project formed Al Amal youth group, and introduced a website titled:
The program has continued for a third year, new material was added, including democracy, gender roles, media and training on public speaking. (48) students from intermediate and high schools graduated in July 2007. This year has been marked for its diversity and the intensity of training received by participants and the number of specialists who contributed to it, in fields of; gender,media, human rights and the method of formulating projects and reports.
The program has achieved significant success in building the characters of the benefiting students, and instilling confidence, a sense of nationality,the concepts of human rights and the culture of non-violence in them, and the promotion of integration between the two sexes, and the consolidation of unity and competition amongst them and a sense of responsibility, as well as developing their skills in solving their conflicts and disputes peacefully, and writing and implementing project , and the use of computers , the Internet , English, and raising their cultural level in general.
The Association Organized in Karbalaa Training Workshop at the beginning of December 2006, on the subject of (Conflict Resolution and Democracy), in which 23 young men and women aged from 18 to 23 and a number of teachers participated.
The Association concluded in Arbil, in mid-September 2007, the Conflict Resolution amongst the Youth program, which took two and a half months, and was attended by 50 high school students, including Arabs displaced from the center and south of Iraq.Participants were divided into two groups; each group participated in 12 workshops, for a total time of 48 hours. (5) professional trainers, in the areas of conflict resolution, negotiation and human rights, contributed to the training.
After the Conflict Resolution among Teen aged Students Program ended, it was replaced by a summer course organized for the students of the first and second group of the conflict resolution program, in which an average of 22 young women and men participated, over a period of four months, during which 11 training workshops were held, for a total time of 86 hours of training. The program included a course in conflict resolution, human rights, gender roles,human security, public speech training, the difference between civilizations and nomad their impact on society, research methods and about the terms literature and culture. With the continuation of the course, a significant development occurred in the young people’s level of thinking, their capabilities, and the enhancement in their interest concerning the activities in their environment and their communities.
Among the most outstanding results of the course, was the youth’s initiative to celebrate the International Day of Peace on the 21st of September 2007. With the assistance of a specialist in theater, the young people created a theatrical group under the name of Life Theatrical Group. They delivered a presentation on a Ramadan’s night, at the site of the explosion,which took place in Karrada neighborhood in Baghdad, in the summer of 2006, and killed dozens of civilians. The .presentation and celebration had an emotional impact on those present as well as on the media