Juegos de Paz: Peace Games Continues Training Work in Colombia

In June 2006, staff from Peace Games returned to Colombia to help evaluate the pilot program that brought the Peace Games curriculum and approach to community service to students in Norte de Santander, a largely rural province in northeastern Colombia. From February to May, teachers in the towns of Cucutilla, El Zulia, San Caetano, Sardinata, and Toledo used the Peace Games curriculum to teach their students the skills of peacemaking. Together with local trainers from the University of the Andes in Bogotá and joined by representatives from the Ministry of Education, Peace Games helped teachers evaluate their work and plan for the expansion of the program in their schools and municipalities

The response from teachers, administrators, and observers was overwhelmingly

"We are friends": second graders in Cucutilla, Norte de Santander at a kick-off event for Peace Games.

positive. While schools did encounter challenges, the consensus was to expand Peace Games in their schools, and teachers who used the curriculum this spring will provide in-service trainings to their colleagues. In January 2007, each teacher in all five municipalities will teach Peace Games. In addition, the Ministry of Education is exploring plans and pursuing funding that will bring Peace Games to additional cities, towns, and provinces throughout Colombia beginning in 2007.

In addition to deepening its work with the Ministry of Education, Peace Games further developed its relationship with Magisterio Publishing Collaborative (www.magisterio.com.co), the Bogotá-based publisher of the Peace Games curriculum. Magisterio sponsored a small "train-the-trainers" institute at the University of the Andes in June that resulted in the first cache of Peace Games trainers in Colombia. This team will now be able to offer a pedagogical introduction to the Peace Games curriculum to a variey of schools, school districts, and community-based organizations throughout the country.

For more information about Peace Games and its work in Colombia and Latin America, email James Noonan, Program Specialist, at james@peacegames.org.

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