Learning for Peace, Côte d’Ivoire: Peace Messenger Clubs

Cote D’Ivoire experienced a decade of civil war and political crisis between 2002 and 2011. Harmful political influence has infiltrated secondary schools through politicalized and violent students and teachers syndicates and gangs, making them increasingly dangerous environments for students and staff. To address this issue, the Ministry of Education introduced The Peace Clubs, at the end of the crisis in 2011 to promote peace in schools. They are a students led mechanism for conflict prevention and resolution.

During January 2015, InsightShare trained a team of 10 young people in Abidjan to carry out a participatory video and most significant change evaluation of a UNICEF peace building project in Cote D’Ivoire. This film shows the results of the three week process. The evaluation focused on the work of UNICEF with Search for Common Ground to reinforce ‘Peace Clubs’ and empower students, citizen of tomorrow to become ‘champions’ of peace through trainings in conflict transformation and mediation, participatory theatre, radio programmes and sports.

Using story circles and participatory methods the evaluation team listened to the stories of 60 young peace messengers and 5 stories were selected that represented the "most significant change" that the project had made in their lives. The stories all document courageous changes the students chose to make as a result of their involvement with the clubs, some of whom have left behind a history as child soldiers and entrenched gang warfare. The trainees carried out an analysis looking at how and why these changes have taken place and what they mean for the students involved. This resource was generated under UNICEF’s 2012–2016 Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme (PBEA) "Learning for Peace", funded by the Government of the Netherlands.

Resource Info

Resource Type

Video

Published

Published by

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

Topic(s)

Education for Peacebuilding
Humanitarian-Development Coherence

Geographic Focus

Côte d'Ivoire