FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION
An article by Amada Benavides de Pérez, Fundacion Escuelas de Paz (FEP), translated by CPNN
Dear CPNN:
Please receive our warm greeting.
It is a pleasure to contact you again in our journey together for this exciting issue of peace education.
I want to keep you abreast of events that have happened this semester in Colombia. I imagine you are aware of most of these stories, but in any case, I’d like to put them into the overall context.
The process of negotiating a peace agreement with the FARC has advanced many topics, including education for peace. For the first time in Colombia it is being mentioned explicitly, and not by other names, and in this sense we have several new initiatives.
1. Chair of Peace. The launch of the Regulatory Decree of the Department of Peace is just one of many scenarios that are moving forward in the country on the subject. Since we have been working more than 15 years to put forward the necessity of peace education in Colombia, this is really a very exciting time.
2. The development of a CONPES document that addresses public policy on human rights education and culture of peace. [Note: CONPES is the Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social).
3. At the same time we are beginning to develop the creation of various collectives that may link up the various isolated efforts. One of the things we have noticed from the document on education for peace in Colombia, was the lack linkages need for a comprehensive approach.
4. The FEP is specifically leading preparations for the National Meeting on Education for Peace, to be held on 1 and 2 October. It has been a very interesting process, because it is in the framework of the Committee to Support the National Peace Council, and we developed the attached document with more than 29 organizations among which account the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education of Bogota, several universities and institutions of society civil. In the framework of this meeting, it is planned to invite the participation of some international experts.
(Click here for the original Spanish of this aricle.)