Service Centre Peace Education Baden-Württemberg

Violence, war and terrorism evoke a massive fear of the future in children and youth. Global, cross-border phenomena such as climate change, migration and pandemics increase the uncertainty, while simultaneously young people are becoming increasingly politically active to find solutions to these global problems.. School is a central place for dealing with the resulting questions. This includes the sensitive handling of pupils concerned as well as the dealing with topical factual issues. One of these topics is the evaluation of current security and peace political developments including the German foreign policy. The utmost concern of peace education at schools is to encourage a joint reflection on peaceful coexistence in schools, in the own society and in the whole world.

The Service Centre is a nationwide unique undertaking for the promotion of peace education at schools. The Service Centre is based a joint declaration, signed by the Ministry of Education youth and sports Baden-Württemberg, 17 peace organisations and the Trade Union for Education and Science. In this declaration, the Ministry commits itself to establishing structural conditions for peace building in Baden-Württemberg. As a result of intensive and constructive discussions between the three actors involved, the Ministry, the State Agency for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg and the Berghof Foundation have signed a treaty on the establishment of the Service Centre in April 2015.

The treaty establishing the Service Centre states: "The Service Centre supports schools in Baden-Württemberg in their work concerning peace education. Hereto, the Service Centre aims at providing suitable print and online materials, trainings and further education for young adults in peace education at schools, and at networking of activities of the joint declaration's signatories and the State Agency for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg. Acknowledged principles of political educational work are considered."

The Service Centre offers advanced trainings for teachers in cooperation with Governmental Organisations and qualifies young adults as teamers for school projects. Together with experienced teachers the Berghof Foundation develops learning media and offers the multiply tested workshop "Peace Counts School". With several model schools for peace education in Baden-Württemberg, activities and projects in the field of peace education in schools are initiated and expanded. Examples are project days and workshops, peer mediation programs or trainings. The participating schools meet regularly at the Georg Zundel House of the Berghof Foundation to exchange experiences.

The Service Centre with its offers addresses teaching staff of schools in Baden-Württemberg. By doing workshops and supporting projects pupils are also reached. Finally, the cross-linking with NGOs and peace organisations facilitates the opening of schools.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Baden-Württemberg and the State Agency for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg are partners of the project and support the Service Centre.

WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS

In the first half of 2022, more than 40 workshops were held in schools on peacebuilding and civil conflict transformation in association with the "Peace Counts" exhibition. Other workshops focus on how to deal with conflict and on children’s questions about war and peace. Due to the war in Ukraine, there was a rising need in schools to discuss peace and conflict issues. Students are seeking information about the reasons for the war, on how to deal with their own fears and for ways to act for peace.

The Service Centre works with workshop facilitators, and offers regular training courses for them on "Peace education methods”. This qualified teams of facilitators implement the workshops in schools.

TEACHER TRAININGS

Twice a year, the Service Centre offers in-service trainings for teachers on Peace Education at the Centre for School Quality and Teacher Education (ZSL), Comburg. There are also regular pre-service trainings on peace education for students and student teachers in cooperation with universities and the training centres for student teachers.

LEARNING MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS

The Service Centre is constantly developing new learning materials for use in classrooms and in extracurricular activities for different age groups. These include exhibitions, picture sets, games and handouts. All publications can be found on the Service Centre website. A regular publication is "Friedensbildung AKTUELL", a digital handout for teachers on topics relevant to peace education, including teaching materials. Latest topics were “gender equality and peace” and “remembrance culture and colonialism” (in German).

The exhibition “Peace Counts – successful examples of peacebuilding worldwide” is touring in Baden-Württemberg and is displayed in schools, libraries and other educational institutions. In 2022, a virtual version of the exhibition was produced.

MODEL SCHOOLS FOR PEACE EDUCATION

At the end of 2021, the pilot phase of the project model schools for peace education ended. A documentation of the activities can be found here (German). The schools are currently writing the reports of their achievements so they can receive official recognition by the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports by the beginning of 2023.

NETWORKS AND ADVOCACY

Regular meetings take place of the Steering Committee of the Service Centre (every two months) and the Advisory Board (twice a year), which includes 18 civil society organizations from the field of peace education and peacebuilding. They advocate for the development of peace education infrastructures in the region.