Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for your interest in the Dr. Joseph Hungwa Memorial Peace Education Program - a professional development course on peace education for educators and community leaders. We are delighted that you are interested in this program and that, as an organization, Teachers Without Borders can offer this resource, free of charge, to individuals and organizations around the world interested in working towards peace.

The idea for this program emerged in central Nigeria where, in January and March of 2010, our Africa Regional Coordinator, Raphael Ogar Oko, witnessed the devastating impact of sectarian violence on the people and communities of his native country. Upon consultation with local partners, including the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria, Mr. Oko suggested that we commence work on a teacher professional development program that assists teachers in becoming peace-builders in their classrooms, schools, and communities, and provides tools and approaches that help educate their students to become peace-builders who can apply the lessons of tolerance and conflict resolution learned in the classroom in their communities.

The Dr. Joseph Hungwa Memorial Peace Education Program is named after the late Dr. Joseph Hungwa, an accomplished and respected Nigerian educator who over many years played a crucial role in expanding Teachers Without Borders programs in Nigeria. Dr. Hungwa was a Teachers Without Borders Coordinator in Benue State, and a Millennium Development Ambassador. 

Until his unexpected death in March 2010, Dr. Hungwa was the most successful Teachers Without Borders State Coordinator in Nigeria. Dr. Hungwa believed in the power of education and worked hard to eliminate all barriers to education in his community. His work was an inspiration to his friends, colleagues, and the entire Teachers Without Borders network.

The professional development program which now bears Dr. Hungwa's name attempts to capture the spirit of his work by building upon the words of Monisha Bajaj who, in her introduction to the Encyclopedia of Peace Education, wrote: “One of the founding principles of peace education initiatives is that learners can develop a sense of possibility that enables them to become agents of social change” (Bajaj, 2008). The aim of this program is not just to present the theoretical foundations of peace education but to also engage educators in translating theory into practice and in thinking critically about how peace education can most effectively enter their classrooms, schools, and communities. Throughout the program, we encourage educators to continually think about how that “sense of possibility” can be present in their classrooms and how their work and the work of their students can ensure social change. To that end, we created review and reflection questions for every section and also the culminating demonstration of mastery project, designed to provide educators with an opportunity to develop a practical resource to help them engage their students and communities in working towards peace.

This program and the sense of possibility it is designed to create in the minds, lives, and professional work of its participants would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication, and expertise of our Peace Education Program Coordinator, Stephanie Knox Cubbon. A recent graduate of the UN-mandated University for Peace, Stephanie recognizes the inseparable connection between classrooms and peace, and she understands the role that educators around the world play in building peace in their classrooms, schools, and communities. She sees teachers as peace-builders, and the program you are about to explore is built upon her strong belief that the road to global peace begins in the classrooms, in the hearts and minds of teachers and their pupils around the world.

I cannot think of a more fitting way to close this introduction than the following excerpt from Stephanie's recent article on peace education: “I hope that someday we won’t even need to say ‘peace education,’ that it will simply be education – that there will be education for all, and that all education will be education for peace” (Knox Cubbon, 2010).

We hope that this program will provide the support you need to become a peace educator in your classroom and your community.

Konrad Glogowski

Director of Programs

Teachers Without Borders

References

Bajaj, M. (2008). Introduction. In M. Bajaj (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Peace Education (pp. 1-9). Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing.

Knox Cubbon, S. (2010, September 23). Living, learning, and teaching peace [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.peacexpeace.org/2010/09/living-learning-and-teaching-peace/