Talking peace in a war-ridden country
Schoolchildren in Bogotá, Colombia, are talking about what it takes to create peace and safety in their country, after more than fifty years of war. To do so, they are using an exhibition created in Oslo, Norway.
“Who received the Nobel Peace Prize last year?” The schoolchildren sitting on the floor of Colombia’s National Museum know the answer. It was their own president. But when asked why he was awarded the prize, the room falls completely silent. Around the students, photographs of Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos hang side by side with those of the civil war’s victims, FARC guerrillas and mine clearance experts.
From Norway to Colombia
The Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition — Hope over Fear — recently travelled from Norway to Colombia. During two months, it was on display both at the Nobel Peace Center and at the National Museum of Colombia. Little did we know as the collaboration was being discussed, that our teaching material would join in on the trip.
The Colombian education team was very interested in finding out how we had incorporated the exhibition into our educational programmes. While they felt they needed help with addressing an issue as heated as the recent peace process in their home country, we, on the other hand, were quite uncertain about how we could contribute. The subject was, after all, their very own country and history. Why would they need our help?
As our collaboration began, we realised there were two things we could contribute: our knowledge of other negotiation processes in Nobel history, and our experience within teaching about conflict resolution. Conflict is, after all, something everybody can relate to.
A whole new departure
“This exhibition gives us an opportunity to talk about the peace process in a completely new way. Before, we only spoke about the conflict’s history — now we are talking to the children about the victims, the cocaine trade and the guerrillas. That is a whole new departure for us.” — Maria Monica Fuentes Leal, Museum Educator at the National Museum of Colombia.
The National Museum of Colombia is primarily an art gallery, whose purpose is to present Colombia’s cultural heritage and history. For its staff, discussing the country’s president and ongoing political conflict with visitors has been a real challenge.
“But the way the Nobel Peace Center has designed the educational programme allows us to talk about the President without taking sides politically,” adds Maria Monica.
Tools for conflict resolution
When we talk about President Santos with schoolchildren and students, here at the Nobel Peace Center, we talk about the role he has played in the peace negotiations, and ask them what qualities they think he needs to have for the peace process to succeed in Colombia.
Whether we are children or adults, we have all experienced conflicts of one kind or another. Sometimes we can resolve them, and sometimes we can’t. We want to make students aware that they possess important conflict-solving skills, and point out that the same mechanisms are responsible for escalating a conflict between two students in a class, as between opposing groups in a country. In addition, we introduce new tools for resolving conflicts, and practise using them. We believe that children, no matter where they come from, can benefit from learning about conflict resolution. And if we succeed in teaching them some techniques, we give them a sense that they themselves can help to create a more peaceful world.
Conflict resolution isn’t the exclusive domain of negotiation processes. There is actually a greater chance for peace processes to succeed when more of us get involved. After last year’s referendum in Colombia, those who feared for the peace agreement took to the streets to show their support and determination. They inspired the title of our exhibition: Hope over Fear. Conflict resolution is hard work, and that is something we learned a great deal about from Colombia.
The transfer of Hope over Fear to Bogotá is the product of a collaboration between the Nobel Peace Center and the National Museum of Colombia, with financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
