Are We Ready for Peace?

4^th-24^th September, 2010

In September 2010, SCI Germany organised a project entitled “Are We Ready for Peace?”. This project was a follow up to the previous “Cooperation, not Confrontation” study visit to Russia that had previously taken place. Both projects were funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The main purpose of the programme was to reach a better understanding with the Russian partners of SCI and other organisations in SCI’s network, on what we understand by peace work and peace education, how we can best achieve it, and leading on from that, developing more quality and cohesive activities together which actually help to further that aim and satisfy the needs of both sides.
The 16 participants travelled to Germany, Russia, Belgium, and France in search of the answer to the question “are we ready for peace?”.

The outcomes of the project can be found in “Are we ready for peace – A reflective review” which includes excerpts from discussions and brainstorming on the importance of a culture of remembrance in peace work today as well as how individuals can contribute to or hinder the peace in their everyday life. The reader can also find outcomes of the debates on the role NGOs could play in work for peace. A separate chapter is dedicated to various dimensions and factors of the cooperation between the European SCI branches and Russian organisations.

Four Key Questions:

What does peace mean for the participants personally and in what does it mean for the participating organisations?

What role peace education plays in out organisation’s work?

Can we identify common interests and find fields where it is fruitful to cooperate?

How can we put the experience that we gain in this project into practice?

Prep Team

Achim Koenig

John Myers

Milosz Czerniejewski

Olga Galieva

"We definitely did not manage to provide ready-to-take answers to the title question; we rather confirmed our intuitive hunch that finding only one right solution and guideline is not feasible, we need to learn tolerance and accept ambiguities. On the contrary, the project explored and opened up new dimensions for reflection, wonder, surprises and uncertainty. So, we can only believe our project contributed to better understanding each other and to find effective ways of working together for peace."  
Prep Team