Hosted by Höfði Reykjavik Peace Centre, in collaboration with the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Forum featured keynote addresses from distinguished experts and dynamic panel discussions with practitioners, researchers, and high-level officials working within their own countries and as international supporters of peace-making efforts.
This year, the GHfP Institute took part in the Imagine Forum held in Reykjavik on 10th October. Prof Scherto Gill convened a panel entitled Is Peace in the Middle EastPossible? An Exploration of Dialogue as a Pathway to Move Beyond the Impasse. Contributors to her panel included: Dr Imad Karam, Director, Initiatives of Change International, Justine Abi Saad, Program Advisor for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation at GIZ, and Helen María Ólafsdóttir, Security Sector and Development Specialist at UNDP.
The panel explored the current situations in the Middle East, and imagined opportunities that dialogue might offer towards building peace in the region, and the conditions necessary for dialogue to flourish.
Particularly where indicators of inter-group tensions are worsening and there is increasing xenophobia, discrimination and bullying in schools and communities, education should provide children with peace-building tools and skills as well as nurturing ethical values. Data shows, that there is an increase in bullying motivated by prejudice against someone’s actual or perceived race, ethnicity, culture, citizenship status or religion. This type of bullying is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes including poor mental health, lower academic engagement, and an increased risk of involvement in delinquent behaviours, especially among older learners. Ethics education and its transformative pedagogy have demonstrated proven results to develop safe learning environments, support children’s sense of meaning and purpose, improve children’s relationships across religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, ultimately equipping them to develop a sense of solidarity, building trust, and enhancing social relations to address polarization, division and fear of the other in communities.
This session was a highly interactive workshop based on the ethics education transformative pedagogy, which provided the opportunity to acquire knowledge, practice skills, learn from one another, and co-create learning together. The workshop contributed towards engaging in a narrative analysis about structural and cultural violence in schools, as well as aiming to contribute to generate reflections on how schools can become champions of peace through interactive pedagogical approaches, inclusive learning environments, dialogue approaches, children-led solutions, community engagement and a whole-school approach.
G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) has convened diverse interfaith actors inspired by the G20 agendas since 2014. Through dialogue, and analytic work, IF20 aims to enrich the G20 process by bringing the wisdom, experience, and voice of diverse faith communities alongside other global constituencies. IF20 Education Working Group (Edu WG), chaired by Prof Scherto Gill, has been actively contributing to policy recommendations relevant to the annual G20 themes.
For 2024, the IF20 Edu WG hosts an international symposium on The Centrality of Harmony in Education in the Global Retreat Centre, Oxford on 1-3 July. It focuses on comprehensive analysis in terms of how Harmony in Education may enhance interfaith/intercultural collaboration, positive peace, inclusive citizenship, climate awareness, and co-flourishing with Nature.
Harmony, in this context, is a philosophy advanced by His Majesty King Charles in his 2010 seminal book entitled: Harmony: A New Way of Looking at our World. The notion of harmony is extremely potent as it allows us to recognise that separation from each other and exploitation of Nature have resulted in present social and ecological catastrophe impacting all. Harmony in Education is thus an imperative for the present and future generations to learn to embrace our interconnection and interdependence and return us to a just world and sustainable planet.
The Symposium gathers IF20 Education Working Group partners, such as ADYAN Foundation, Guerrand-Hermès Foundation, Scholas Occurentes, Salzberg Global Seminar, and other international educational organisations, including King’s Foundation, Harmony Institute, the Harmony Project, Education Policy & Administration, Government of NCT of Delhi, India, and WES Networks Brazil, to explore how Harmony in Education can contribute to 2024 G20’s theme of Just World Sustainable Planet.
During the Symposium, each participant/contributor will make a presentation on their relevant work under the G20 2024’s theme. Then the participants will dialogue and discuss policy ideas around integrating Harmony Education in public schooling.
Questions to be considered during the Symposium:
What are our understandings of harmony in the context of global challenges? How might we integrate harmony in our ways of being?
In what ways might harmony contribute to the G20 2024 theme – Just Society Sustainable Planet?
How can education help advance harmony?
What policy ideas should we propose to G20 leaders in terms of integrating harmony in education?
What case studies might demonstrate the imperative of harmony in education and its contribution to the G20 2024’s concerns, especially in terms of justice, sustainability and good governance?
Well-Being of Future Generations: A Co-Creative Approach, Harpa, Reykjavik. June 2024.
When our current economic systems effectively prioritise materialism, self-interest, and other misplaced values, a greater majority of humanity suffers. Some grapple with political antagonism and oppression, some experience racism and discrimination, and others struggle in poverty and marginalisation, and lack the opportunity for decent livelihood. Alongside related ecological disasters, causing catastrophic harm to humans and the more-than-human, such systemic and environmental turbulence has not only engendered a pandemic of ill-being amongst global youth, but can also have long-term detrimental effects on collective well-being in generations to come.
Despite bringing in technological advancement and increased wealth, in fact, capitalism remains entrenched in a culture of individualism and instrumentalisation. Such a culture perpetuates paradigms of separation, dehumanisation and inequality. Conversely, it also reflects a deeper crisis of humanity, namely a loss of core human values, such as respect for human dignity and care for our interconnectedness.
To move beyond the current impasse towards global transformation requires a fuller appreciation of what it means to live and act in accordance with our shared humanity. It involves a better understanding of how diverse social, political and grassroots actors can collectively respond to the myriad crises, and co-imagine common pathways for enhancing the well-being and flourishing of all in the future.
In such contexts, UNESCO Social and Human Sciences (SHS) Sector, in collaboration with Global Humanity for Peace (GHfP) Institute at the University of Wales TSD, convened an international Symposium during the Well-Being Economy Forum 2024, held on 11th June 2024 in Reykjavik, Iceland. The theme of the Symposium is Well-Being of Future Generations: A Co-Creative Approach.
UNESCO has focused its fundamental mission on developing mutual understanding, confronting contemporary challenges, and building lasting peace. UNESCO SHS Sector, under the leadership of Mrs Gabriela Ramos, has extended expertise in co-constructing just, inclusive, and resilient societies. In particular, UNESCO recognises that concerted global efforts are imperative to reframe the present existential crises as an opportunity for inclusive intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, and cross-boundary collaboration.
In particular, the Symposium drew insights from UNESCO’s focus on human rights and social justice to foreground an ethical approach to inclusive well-being policymaking. Furthermore, by stressing gender equality, youth empowerment and futures-forming changemaking, the Symposium advocated a co-creative approach to social transformation.
In this Symposium, we gather significant interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how our global systems can be:
underpinned by the respect for the intrinsic value of every person and a commitment to the equal dignity of all.
characterised by dialogue and co-creation in the processes.
aimed at enhancing well-being of present and future generations alongside the flourishing of all beings in nature.
Through listening, dialogue and reflection, the contributors and participants will have an opportunity to give voice to the theme of the Symposium. In particular, the esteemed panel and youth will discuss how core human values and principles can inform the provision of well-being sensitive public policies, especially in education, equality and ecological integrity; the design of caring institutions, and the nurturing of futures-forming changemakers.
The UNESCO Collective Healing Circles (CHCs) Capacity-Building for Facilitators is designed to support and nurture experienced facilitators who have interest in hosting UNESCO CHCs in your local community.
Below is a short introduction to the UNESCO CHC Facilitators Capacity Building, including:
background
theoretical underpinnings
community contexts
innovative features
CHC processes and modules
CHC capacity building facilitators mentors
outcomes
It is highly recommended that all facilitators who wish to take part in the UNESCO CHC Capacity Building watch this less-than 15 minutes Introduction presented by the UNESCO CHC Facilitator Mentors.
The Introduction is available in the following languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Understanding and healing relational and spiritual harm of dehumanisation
Collective Healing, Social Justice and Global Well-Being is a UNESCO initiative aimed at addressing the legacies of dehumanisation, including the harms of transoceanic enslavement of Africans, colonialism, continued racism, and other forms of structural discrimination. An important aspect of this initiative is to investigate the plethora of harms from multiple dimensions. Partners supporting this initiative include Guerrand-Hermès Foundation, Global Humanity for Peace (GHfP) Institute at University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), Fetzer Institute, AfroSpectives, and Virginia Union University (VUU).
Through the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project’s (REP) 30 years’ endeavours, there have been research, documentation, recognising the destruction of afore-mentioned legacies, especially in terms of physical, cultural, and economic harms. To these efforts, during the 2nd session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent 2023, delegates of African and indigenous descent added a call for more research and better understanding of the relational and spiritual dimensions of these harms, which can serve as the basis for more concerted action towards healing and systemic transformation.
Indeed, without acknowledging relational and spiritual harms, collective efforts to confront the legacies of transoceanic enslavements and continued injustices against people of African and indigenous descent may fall short. Mere materialistic repairs, such as reducing economic disparity, levelling public services, and providing equal access to health, education, housing, finance, and employment, are not enough. While economic and social justice is important, the Afro and indigenous communities directly impacted by the dehumanising legacies insist that addressing the relational and spiritual dimensions of the harms and the connected trauma are equally, if not even more, critical. The characterisation of relational and spiritual harm should help bring to light the complex layers of harm, offering a more holistic conception of dehumanising harm. This will enable us to better recognise how both those who were violently enslaved and their descendants, and those who performed inhumane acts upon the enslaved, and their descendants, suffer from a same harm that can be described as relational and spiritual.
To this end, the partners supporting the collective healing initiative, have jointly launched two processes: the first was a conceptual exploration aimed at understanding what constitutes relational and spiritual harm; and the second was a pilot programme that engaged global communities in intergenerational dialogue and inquiries (IDI) to reflect on people’s lived experiences of the dehumanising legacies and connected relational and spiritual harm. The IDIs also enabled community stakeholders to identify relational and spiritual practices and resources key to resilience and healing of collective trauma.
To further deepen our understanding of what constitutes relational and spiritual harm from an interdisciplinary perspective, and to explore what relational and spiritual approaches to healing and community regeneration are necessary in the context of global structural dehumanisation, the partners hosted a second UNESCO Symposium in January 2024 at Virginia Union University, in Richmond, VA., USA.
FOCUS & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
We invite thinkers, scholars, researcher and practitioners to come together and focus our dialogue on the nature of relational and spiritual harm, and the necessary relational-centred and spiritually-inspired approaches to collective healing. Here, ‘spiritual harm’ is not solely about the wounding perpetuated or condoned by faith-based teaching, spiritual leaders and religious institutions.
We propose the following questions for dialogue and discussion:
What is the nature of dehumanising harm in the contexts of transoceanic slavery?
How might the terms ‘relational’ and ‘spiritual’ shift our understanding of such harm and the connected trauma and continuing injustices? What are the processes, modalities and manifestations of these harms?
How does the relational and spiritual harm differ for the enslaved and their descendants, and the enslavers and their descendants? What are the micro and macro consequences of those harms today?
What forms of healing are necessary to overcome these harms? How do the healing processes differ for those who are at the receiving end of dehumanisation and those who are perpetuating or participating in the perpetuation of dehumanisation?
What should be the future directions of healing work in the light of our understandings of relational and spiritual harm? How could we best integrate the relational and spiritual dimension in global transformation towards just system and well-being of all?
What approaches/practices could we draw upon and learn from global communities? How might research contribute to a new political culture of respect, love and caring?
Collective Healing, Social Justice and Global Well-Being is a UNESCO initiative aimed at addressing the legacies of dehumanisation, including the harms of transoceanic enslavement of Africans, colonialism, continued racism, and other forms of structural discrimination.
Past Event, 11-14 December 2023.
An important aspect of this initiative is to investigate the plethora of harms from multiple dimensions. Partners supporting this initiative include Guerrand-Hermès Foundation, Global Humanity for Peace (GHfP) Institute at University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), Fetzer Institute, and AfroSpectives.
Through the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Project’s (REP) 30 years’ endeavours, there have been research, documentation, recognising the destruction of afore-mentioned legacies, especially in terms of physical, cultural, and economic harms. To these efforts, during the 2nd session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent 2023, delegates of African and indigenous descent added a call for more research and better understanding of the relational and spiritual dimensions of these harms, which can serve as the basis for more concerted action towards healing and systemic transformation.
Indeed, without acknowledging relational and spiritual harms, collective efforts to confront the legacies of transoceanic enslavements and continued injustices against people of African and indigenous descent may fall short. Mere materialistic repairs, such as reducing economic disparity, levelling public services, and providing equal access to health, education, housing, finance, and employment, are not enough. While economic and social justice is important, the Afro and indigenous communities directly impacted by the dehumanising legacies insist that addressing the relational and spiritual dimensions of the harms and the connected trauma are equally, if not even more, critical. The characterisation of relational and spiritual harm should help bring to light the complex layers of harm, offering a more holistic conception of dehumanising harm. This will enable us to better recognise how both those who were violently enslaved and their descendants, and those who performed inhumane acts upon the enslaved, and their descendants, suffer from a same harm that can be described as relational and spiritual.
To this end, the partners supporting the collective healing initiative, have jointly launched two processes: the first was a conceptual exploration aimed at understanding what constitutes relational and spiritual harm; and the second was a pilot programme that engaged global communities in intergenerational dialogue and inquiries (IDI) to reflect on people’s lived experiences of the dehumanising legacies and connected relational and spiritual harm. The IDIs also enabled community stakeholders to identify relational and spiritual practices and resources key to resilience and healing of collective trauma.
To further deepen our understanding of what constitutes relational and spiritual harm from an interdisciplinary perspective, and to explore what relational and spiritual approaches to healing and community regeneration are necessary in the context of global structural dehumanisation, the partners hosted a UNESCO Symposium on 11-14 Dec 2023 in Oxford.
FOCUS and DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
We invited thinkers, scholars, researchers and practitioners to come together and to focus our dialogue on the nature of relational and spiritual harm, and the necessary relational-centred and spiritually-inspired approaches to collective healing. Here, ‘spiritual harm’ is not solely about the wounding perpetuated or condoned by faith-based teaching, spiritual leaders and religious institutions.
We proposed the following questions for dialogue and discussion:
What is the nature of dehumanising harm in the contexts of transoceanic slavery?
How might the terms ‘relational’ and ‘spiritual’ shift our understanding of such harm and the connected trauma and continuing injustices? What are the processes, modalities and manifestations of these harms?
How does the relational and spiritual harm differ for the enslaved and their descendants, and the enslavers and their descendants? What are the micro and macro consequences of those harms today?
What forms of healing are necessary to overcome these harms? How do the healing processes differ for those who are at the receiving end of dehumanisation and those who are perpetuating or participating in the perpetuation of dehumanisation?
What should be the future directions of healing work in the light of our understandings of relational and spiritual harm? How could we best integrate the relational and spiritual dimension in global transformation towards just system and well-being of all?
What approaches/practices could we draw upon and learn from global communities? How might research contribute to a new political culture of respect, love and caring?
The Conference on the Resolution of Intractable Conflict is an Oxford-based, multi-disciplinary, global network of researchers and practitioners who apply cutting edge field-based research methods from the cognitive and behavioural sciences in collaboration with the policy community to better understand and address politically motivated violence.
The CRIC Annual Conference took place from the 19th to the 21st of September 2022 at Harris Manchester College in Oxford and in hybrid format.
The 2021 CRIC Conference looked beyond COVID and enquired whether it would result in a new solidarity or in fragmentation. The 24th February 2022 saw a dramatic shift in geo-politics with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Almost over-night the world changed. The post-war rules-based international order was thrown into disarray as two of the United Nations Security Council P5 showed total disregard for the rule of law and for human rights. Are we swinging back to a deeply divided world or are we spinning into a third global conflict with all the chaos that portends?
The motif for this year’s CRIC Annual Conference features Apollo and Dionysus – Apollo representing harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, and Dionysus representing disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy, and the unity that obscures individuality. Our colleagues have done much in recent years to show how these two ways of thinking both have their place in mental functioning. An underlying question for us at this time is whether there must be a struggle between rationality and passion until one wins out, or whether a fusion of these elements can lead us to finding a new paradigm for global relations.
The Irish poet, Seamus Heaney said in ‘The Cure at Troy’, reflecting on the work of the Greek dramatist, Sophocles:
“So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a farther shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells .. once in a lifetime that justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.”
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