By Women Peace Makers, May 12, 2023
Note: This new book includes a chapter co-authored by World BEYOND War Education Director Phill Gittins.
This book was inspired by the Women Peace Makers (WPM) 2020 intervention that explored history from a young person’s perspective in an inter-ethnic setting in Cambodia. That gathering demonstrated that the past deeply affects who we are today and how we interact with others and with ourselves. The 1975-1979 genocide and the following decades of civil wars, in particular, have shaped a society scarred by trauma, warfare, and survival, while the educational system was in a complete collapse.
This book offers a brief overview of concepts of peacebuilding while introducing teachers and learners to the various tools and types of interventions utilized in the field that are culturally responsive to the Southeast Asia context and demonstrate the complex nature of peacebuilding. It is meant to co-create spaces that support meaningful and challenging dialogue, as well as hopeful and transformational spaces. The book has two overall objectives:
1) To explain theoretical aspects that support nonviolence and peacebuilding.
2) To show how theory is applied in practice in a SE Asia context.
This multidisciplinary collection of essays examines peacebuilding through a variety of ways of knowing. Each chapter is structured in the same way. It grounds itself in a Cambodian quote or proverb that sets the tone for that chapter. Each chapter starts with theory, states the purpose of the chapter, and highlights 2-3 points. Then the chapter moves the theory into practice within a SE Asian context describing the situation or scenario that supports the topic, as it offers a description of the thoughts and feelings of communities. Lastly, it details what actions were made to support the topic or resolve the situation.
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