International Day of Non-Violence 2018
International Day of Non-Violence, October 2nd is celebrated on the day of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the initiators of the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent resistance.
Svitac (Firefly) organized workshops, methodically adapted to the participants’ age, attended by two groups of children.
The aim of the workshops was to promote the importance of the International Day of Non-Violence, and the importance of respect and cultural diversity. In order to educate children and young people to break with prejudice and stereotypes towards their peers, as well as promote peaceful and non-violent conflict resolution, we directed them to creative, preventive and structured content. In this way, children will learn to find friends in their peers.
The younger participants (age 4-7) had the opportunity to learn from a peace brochure, one of the local volunteers read the story of Mahatma Gandhi, and the participants looked at several international signs against violence. They also made of play-dough peace sign.
The afternoon group had a discussion adapted to their age on the topic of peer violence, hate speech on the Internet and looked at the signs of peace and non-violence from the countries from of the international volunteers of Svitac/Firefly (Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey). An exercise was also done to point out the solution to the problem of violence.
All activities were held on the premises of the Youth Centre in Brčko District.
