2020 HWPL Peace Education Forum in East Africa

‘Peace Education, the Answer for Sustainable Peace and Development in Africa’

On 30 October, Kenya and Uganda, two East African countries, co-hosted the HWPL Peace Forum. The forum was held virtually and included 185 participants, including members from the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO and the Uganda National Commission for UNESCO, HWPL peace educators, and leaders from the education field.

HWPL has cooperated with Kenya and Uganda’s National Commission of UNESCO since 2019 to seek ways to implement peace education within the two countries, and both countries have set and carried out plans to successfully implement peace education for the past year. They especially focused on fostering educators who could teach peace education. So far, there have been three groups of peace educators who have completed the peace educator training program.

The two countries prepared this forum so that the world could enjoy peace through sustainable peace education. The forum emphasized the need for peace education so that people could recognize the importance of peace and actively carry out peace education even among the chaos brought on by the pandemic.

Mr. Mathias Kevin Osimbo, the president of Teachers Without Borders Kenya (TWBK) and a peace educator, stated “I have to share the peace we have with other teachers as a peace educator. Because the Gospel of preaching peace is going all the way to reaching out to many with HWPL peace values from the peace education curriculum to be able to implement them in their various schools. That’s the only way I can reach out to many people, and of course, for me, I deal with students, and students are the future generations. They are very people who depend on teachers. Therefore, we have to reach out to them.”

Ms. Rosie Agoi, the Secretary General of the Uganda National Commission for UNESCO expressed, “I would like to note that the National Commission for UNESCO in East Africa, not just Kenya and Uganda, should join this. And I’d like to participate in a peace education program. Because of the National Commission for UNESCO, we have a big influence, and we can get a lot of support when we collaborate. So I’d like to work together on team planning, team implementation, and team monitoring, so we can finally work as a team.”

Kenya and Uganda’s National Commission for UNESCO plan on expanding the implementation of peace education in each country by adopting HWPL’s peace education within UNESCO, and utilizing the peace curriculum. They will also continue training peace educators of both nations who can teach peace education, so that both students and people can receive peace education.