Facilitators: Atsuhiro Katano and Gayeon Kim
This course will provide a framework of knowledge of peace and conflict studies to those who need introductory provisions to the field. It will focus on three major terms of the field: conflict, peace, and violence. The participants will work on defining and understanding these terms and applying them to our local and regional contexts with specific issues and cases. Throughout the course, sessions are composed of various ways of active learning, such as group work, role plays, and communication skills exercises. Further inputs will be provided by the resource persons and in collaboration with other courses. Participants too are expected to contribute to the course as resources to each other by sharing their knowledge, experience, and reflection in-class activities.
2. Theory and Practice of Peace Education
Facilitators: Cheryl Woelk and Natsuha Kajita
The course seeks to introduce the participants to the fundamental knowledge base, skills and value orientations of peace education. It is intended for educators and trainers working in formal, nonformal and informal sectors. The course will use a holistic framework aimed at cultivating mindsets, attitudes, behaviors, structures, and cultures for peacebuilding in educational settings, which will include an introduction to related topics such as conflict transformation, restorative justice, nonviolent communication and creating cultures of peace with administration, teachers, students, parents, and community. It will also engage participants in a learning process that is consistent with the principles of peace, valuing the languages, cultures and identities of participants, to demonstrate that content and pedagogy should form one integral whole. Participants will collaboratively engage with course contents and processes to adapt their learning to their local contexts.
3. Peacebuilding and Climate Change: Facing Two Dragons
Facilitators: Steve Leeper and Zolzaya Nyamdorj
All human beings, wherever we live, are confronting (individually and collectively) the twin threats known as “environmental collapse” and “nuclear war”. Some say we are already doomed to 3 or 4 degrees of global warming and, therefore, catastrophic climate change. Some say World War III has already begun; we have never been closer to nuclear war. This course will begin with a chance to share and learn about the impact of climate change in each of our lives, including the impact in Mongolia. We will also briefly review the international consensus (UN reports, mainstream media reports) regarding the problems we must solve. All participants will collectively enter into deep factual, emotional, philosophical or spiritual exploration of 1) what do we, as a group of NARPI participants, believe about the twin threats, and 2) what potential solutions we envision. This exploration will include presentations and lectures, group discussions and sharing, and a field trip to see how Mongolian society is responding to climate change and the nuclear issue. The goal of this course will be for all participants to go home with a deeper understanding of how each of us needs to change the way we live and how we can engage with the problems and solutions we identify.