Education - a tool for prevention of violent extremism in South-East Europe
Article published on 10-10-2018
“The global citizenship education for peaceful societies in South-East Europe” - a sub-regional capacity-building workshop on the prevention of violent extremism (PVE) took place at the UNESCO office in Venice, Italy. It aligned with the "Education for Justice" (E4J) initiative, implemented by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as part of its Global Programme for the implementation of the Doha Declaration, and was complimentary to UNESCO's ongoing efforts on global citizenship education and the prevention of violent extremism through education.
The workshop was organized jointly by UNESCO’s Section of Global Citizenship and Peace Education (GCPE) and UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, with the support of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In attendance were 22 representatives from South-East European countries.
The 3-day programme focused on the role of education in the prevention of violent extremism, followed by key tools and approaches for effective multi-stakeholder engagement, which provided a solid basis for the participants to formulate and present their draft country action plans on the last day.
The workshop benefited from 9 international experts from Arigatou International, CELL Foundation, the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Training Centre for International Cooperation, and Radicalisation Awareness Network RAN EU.
The experts, along with UNESCO and UNODC staff, facilitated exercises on varied topics. They ranged from the global PVE legal framework to potential causes of the prevention of violent extremism through education (PVE-E) in South-East Europe, linkages between education and violent extremism, what defines a “good practice”, inclusive education through quality textbooks, the power of media and information literacy, ethics education, polarization management and the role of the family in PVE-E.
Romania was represented at the workshop by Iris Constantin, expert of the National Commission of Romania for UNESCO, Prof. Ph.D. Alina Dima, Director of UNESCO Chair for Business Administration (Academy of Economic Studies) and Prof. Ph.D Octavia Costea, Co-responsible of UNESCO Chair in Culture of Human Rights and Education for Sustainable Development in Pre-School and Primary Education (“Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University).