THE OUTLINE OF OUR COURSES

1) Conflict sensitive peace education and problem solving skills in the unstable Horn of African region (Basic/intermediate)

This basic and intermediate course focuses on:

✔ The concept of conflict from indigenous and theoretical perspectives;

✔ Diagnosing early symptoms of conflict;

✔ Main modalities of conflict resolutions;

✔ The centrality of mindset shift;

✔ Building trust, and healing hearts and minds from negativities;

✔ Managing emotions as an effective peace-building method;

✔ Culture of everyday peace;

✔ Forgiveness and its impacts social wellbeing;

✔ The role of social media, education, and religion as effective mechanisms of building peace.

2) Conflict sensitive peace education and problem solving skills in the unstable Horn of African region (Advanced)

This advanced course (AC) is a further expansion of the basic and intermediate course. It focuses on the following topics:

✔ Main peace theories;

✔ Differences between peace making, peace keeping, and peace-building;

✔ Peace as a process and practical wisdom;

✔ Conflict transformation;

✔ Mediation in culturally sensitive and context-specific approach;

✔ The role of arts (e.g. poems, proverbs, storytelling, and painting) in peace building;

✔ The role of traditional customary methods in resolving local conflicts;

✔ Mapping and identifying local conflicts as well as social ills triggering and perpetuating local conflicts;

✔ The impact of healthy social relationships in building trust, social harmony and sustainability;

✔ Non-violent communication abilities;

✔ Social justice, pluralism/diversity and tolerance as effective mechanisms in peace-building;

✔ Inner-peace, self-knowledge/self-dialogue and personal transformation as key ingredients in social change and sustainable peace;

✔ Emotional intelligence, and expectation management;

✔ Universal peace values such as empathy, proactive attitudes, mutual respect, and spiritual nourishment;

✔ How to conduct peace-related research in conflict-affected regions.

3) Good governance & leadership in conflict-affected societies (Basic & intermediate)

This basic and intermediate course offers knowledge, practical experiences and skills on:

✔ The concepts of leadership and governance in context-specific and conflict-affected societies;

✔ Combination of indigenous and external expert perspectives in leadership and governance in unstable societies;

✔ The role of leadership and good governance in peace and trust building, restoring hope, uplifting community spirit, and reconciling divided communities;

✔ Main steps of building effective teams suitable to the context;

✔ Making collective decisions based on win-win approach instead of zero-some game;

✔ The role of governance and leadership in mobalising the wider society and international communities in helping during recovery process and post conflict situations.

4) Context-specific life skills (Advanced)

During this advanced course, participants will gain relevant knowledge, experiences and skills in the following topics:

✔ Inter-personal, intercultural and repairing communication skills in unstable and polarized societies;

✔ Personal growth and wellbeing: personally, socially, intellectually, and emotionally;

✔ Authenticity and self-discovery;

✔ Life balance, and proactive social approach;

✔ Life renewal skills, creativity, and curiosity;

✔ Genuine listening skills with special emphasis in precarious situations;

✔ Reducing self-sabotage attitudes and victim mentality;

✔ Feeling and understanding other people’s stories and feelings;

✔ Anger management in war-torn communities;

✔ Constructive critical thinking and reasoning;

✔ Nurturing sense of resilience and quick recovery from conflict trauma and life challenges in unstable regions;

✔ The way forward.