Violence is a learned
behavior– and the learning usually begins in childhood.
So work with and by children and young people towards
developing strategies to transform violence is key to
developing a safer future.
In the USA, where more than 5000 schools
have introduced conflict management programs, a three-year
evaluation of several school-based conflict management
programs found that most students improved their attitudes
towards conflict, increased their understanding of non-violent
problem solving methods, and enhanced their communication
skills (study by the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution
and Conflict management).
Transforming violence can begin from the
earliest age: children who are helped to develop violence
prevention, healing and transformation skills will carry
them through the rest of their lives – and help
to create a more peaceful world.
Children are also creating their own actions
and organizations to deal with violence. For example:
Youth charter for non-violence
Children and young people from all over
England developed a youth charter for non-violence at
workshops coordinated by the Forum on Children and Violence
in 2001, as part of the UN decade for a Culture of Peace
for the Children of the World. A group of 100 trained
peer mediators (aged 11-18) in the Conflict Resolution
in Schools (CRISP) project spent a day hosted by a football
club in Leicester developing a charter, and this process
was repeated across the country. Each group of young
people came up with the same key themes, and these have
been sent to schools and youth across the UK as posters
and postcards, together with “Checkpoints for
Young People” and “Checkpoints for Schools
– tools for action to address violence”:
Violence
is not the right solution
- a youth charter for non-violence
