The Ethics Education Fellowship Programme (EEFP) concludes its first phase with strong country commitments. Held on 23-25 April 2024, the ‘Convening of Champions’ meeting marked a significant milestone in the Ethics Education Fellowship Programme collaboration. The gathering was attended by 70 participants from 17 countries, including senior representatives from Ministries of Education, UNESCO offices, and partner organizations, as well as religious leaders. The event served as a bustling hub for discussing the importance of prioritizing and investing in Ethics Education. Children’s testimonials lit up the room, while participating countries made promising commitments.
During the April convening, the EEFP launched a Report capturing the one-year effort to monitor and evaluate the programme.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Report
The GHFP has led the MEL of EEFP in six countries. Supported by the partners, our research team collected comprehensive country-based data for thematic analysis and meaning-making. The MEL Report outlines the key findings from the first phase of the EEFP, and significant learnings emerging from the experiences of the EEFP fellows, participating teachers and children in the classrooms.
The global symposium Transforming Education: Ethics Education for Learning to Live Together gathered more than 900 educators, children and young people, policymakers, religious leaders, faith-based and civil society organizations, academic researchers, and multilateral agencies.
The Symposium provided a platform for various stakeholders to share experiences on ethics education programs and their contribution to peacebuilding and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Participants learned about good practices, programs, and policies from governments and schools, with the participation of several ministries of education.
We are pleased to share with you the Report of the Symposium, where you will find out more about the issues discussed, and the recommendations made by the different stakeholders.
You will also find below the Policy Brief: Advancing Ethics Education for Children to Contribute to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, developed by the organizers, with concrete recommendations and programmatic actions on integrating ethics education as a core tenet of equal and inclusive education for children.
One of the main outcomes of the symposium is the launch of the Ethics Education Fellowship Programme for ministries of education to build a network of formal education institutions and create a platform for sharing and building capacity within the ministries. The Fellowship Program will be formally announced within the next few weeks.
To understand how education can contribute to the above challenges, the IF20 Education Working Group partners launched a Global Listening Initiative (GLI). The aim of the GLI was two-fold: (1) to ground policy inquiry in existing global proposals, (2) to understand the lived experiences of children and young people in diverse contexts and engage them in identifying actions for educational transformation.
The GLI consisted in two parts: an extended Desk Review to listen to the widespread calls to action from diverse international organisations, global educational commissions, religious communities, grassroots movement and scholars; and a global consultation to listen to young people and engage with their perspectives. Over two thousand adolescents (aged 14-19) from 26 countries across five continents took part in online and/or in-person workshops hosted by NGOs, schools, and faith-based organisations. Adolescents from diverse backgrounds were invited to reflect on their experiences of life and education during the Covid-19 pandemic; identify who and what have been most supportive to their learning and well-being; and propose educational policy priorities that can explicitly support their healing, learning and flourishing. Participants’ insights were drawn out through a deep listening and dialogic process, and immersive data analysis, bringing together themes arising from structured and unstructured facilitators’ and youth’s reports, images, drawings, and quotes from participants. Both processes have yielded rich understandings of the potentials to work purposefully through education programmes as ways to advocate for and advance equity, inclusion, and well-being. Conceptions of healing and well-being rooted in faith, indigenous and other spiritual traditions played an important part in guiding the GLI’s reflection.
Young people from India, Lebanon and UK representing the voices of global adolescents and shared their experiences of education and insights from the Global Listening Initiative in the following dialogue.
Through listening, dialogue and inquiry, the G20 Interfaith Forum Education Working Group was able to bring children and young people’s voices forward through an educational policy brief, presented at IF20 Summit held in Bologna, September, 2021.
International Symposium on Relational Process as Governance, 2021
If relational process is the overarching connection that unites emergent approaches to governance, thus opening new vistas of theory and practice, further exploration is vital. To this end, GHFP invited scholars and practitioners whose work centrally bears on these issues to explore the implications and potentials of relational process in governance.
What does a relational orientation offer for the future development of governance, from the local, regional, to the national, international and trans-national level?
Bearing on issues in governance, are there significant differences among theories of relational process, with implications for governance?
What particular practices of relating might be recognized as positive contributions to governance? How can we best understand their functioning? How might governance be enriched by practices of relating?
What are the major impediments to effective relational process? How are they overcome?
With relational process as a centre-piece, how are we to conceive of leadership? What practices would be invited?
As part of the G20 Interfaith (G20 / IF20) Education-Task-Force, the GHFP launched a research into Inclusive and Caring Education from a Faith Perspective. The research consisted in two parts: (1) a Desk Review to understand better how religion/faith and spirituality tend to define inclusive and caring education; (2) a Questionnaire Survey to seek examples and case studies of faith-inspired approaches to inclusive and caring education.
Three priority areas have emerged from our inquiries, which deserve further attention:
Teachers’ professional development, especially towards enabling teachers to be more skilled at facilitating dialogic and collaborative learning in classrooms of rich diversity;
Innovative approaches and practices of inclusive and caring education, notably in engaging girls, and other vulnerable students;
Safe, caring and inclusive learning spaces, including through digital platforms.
The G20/ IF20 Education Task Force invited high-level experts in the fields of education, faith and policy for an online consultation with the aim to review thematic proposals and make policy recommendations.
Inclusive education offers paths to enhancing students’ motivation for participation and learning, raising self- and other-awareness, reducing biases, enriching relationships, increasing capabilities in team work, collaboration and conflict transformation, enabling a greater sense of belonging and community, reducing bullying and violence, and most importantly, improving wellbeing and opportunities for all. Without inclusive and caring approaches, vulnerable children and young people are not only discriminated against within the current systems, they are also excluded from broader opportunities for learning and wellbeing.
2020 G20 Interfaith Forum: Interfaith Approach to Advancing Inclusive Education
International Seminar on trust-building and Collective Healing, 30th October 2019, London
Hosted by Initiatives of Change trust-building Programme in partnership with the GHFP Research Institute, this international seminar offered a unique opportunity to meet, share and discuss the process of building trust.
At a time of increasing fragmentation, trust is diminishing around the world. Communities face racial, ethnic and religious divides, intergenerational conflict, and the rise of extremist attitudes, as well as social divisions and the legacy of war. The Seminar poses a critical question: “How can we address these challenges?”
Among the discussants was Letlapa Mphahlele, commander of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army during apartheid times. His anger was such that he ordered retaliatory massacres of white civilians. After a radical transformation he now sees the whole of humanity as ‘my people’. Letlapa, who, until 2013, was President of the Pan Africanist Congress and a Member of the South African Parliament, is a protagonist in the award-winning film, Beyond Forgiving, which depicts a profound story of tragedy, forgiveness and hope.
International Symposium: Collective Healing of Traumas: New Possibilities for Peace in Communities. 24th Sept 2019
Collective and community initiatives can empower those suffering from the wounds of a violent past to collaborate towards mutual healing, thus creating new possibilities for peace.
To better understand the significance of these community-rooted collective healing endeavours, the GHFP and the UNESCO Slave Route Project hosted a one-day International Symposium, at the Royal Society for the Arts in London.
The event brought together practitioners and scholars who have experiences and expertise in the field of communal and collective healing of mass traumas, for an intimate dialogue focused around three core questions:
What are the typical psychological and social symptoms encountered in communities resulting from the experience and legacies of past atrocities?
What might constitute collective healing in these situations?
How do community-based processes and practices contribute to collective healing? (And how would the community evaluate collective healing? What are the relevant indicators that some healing has taken place?)
Presentations included Australia’s journey of healing through the Sorry Day marches, the Healing the Wounds of History programme in Lebanon, Foresee Research Group’s restorative healing approaches in Hungary, critical reflection on the structural conditions of healing from the perspectives of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation, the Initiatives of Change International ‘Trustbuilding in the Communities programme.
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