Conflict and Peace
How to deal with conflict in my life?
War Child Holland’s goal is to empower children and young people in waraffected areas. Children have the right to grow up in peace and War Child
advocates for the realisation of their rights. Our programs strengthen
psychosocial development, educational opportunities and support the
development of a protective environment. Using the transformative power
of creative arts and sports is central to our method of work.
War Child Holland has programs in Afghanistan, Burundi, Chechnya, Colombia,
DR Congo, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, The Netherlands,
Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
War Child Holland is an independent and impartial non-governmental organisation.
We support all children and young people affected by conflict, irrespective of their
religious, social or ethnic backgrounds.
War Child Holland is part of War Child International, a network of independent
organisations.
www.warchildlearning.org
CONFLICT AND PEACE
Module of War Child’s I DEAL intervention
Concept and development, War Child Holland,
Elise Griede, Liesbeth Speelman, Eveline Jansveld
Editorial design, art direction, technique, Butterfly Works
Illustrations, Robert Bouwman
Photographs, Marco van Hal, Geert Snoeijer, Vincent van de Wijngaard,
War Child Holland
For more information, please contact War Child Holland:
T: +31 20 626 1273
E: info@warchild.nl
W: www.warchildholland.org
© War Child Holland, June 2009
This publication may be copied and distributed freely, provided War Child Holland is acknowledged.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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4
5
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6
THEME INTRODUCTION
Goals of this module
Conflict as a part of life
Conflict analysis
Levels of conflict
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10
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SESSION 1: TYPES AND CAUSES OF CONFLICT
Exercise 1: Apple pickers
Exercise 2: Mystery figure
Exercise 3: Levels of conflict
Exercise 4: Thank you
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16
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17
18
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SESSION 2: CONFLICTS IN YOUR OWN LIFE
Exercise 1: Chairs
Exercise 2: Analyse the situation
Exercise 3: Image of a conflict
Exercise 4: Bringing the image to life I
Exercise 5: Bringing the image to life II
Exercise 6: Counting together
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21
22
23
SESSION 3: HOW TO DEAL WITH CONFLICT
Exercise 1: Human knot
Exercise 2: Naming skills for solving conflicts
Exercise 3: Resolving a conflict in stages
Exercise 4: Zip zap boing
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24
25
25
26
27
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SESSION 4: PROMOTING A CULTURE OF PEACE
Exercise 1: Donkeys
Exercise 2: The Peace talk
Exercise 3: Drawing together
Exercise 4: The Peace Action Plan
Module evaluation
Exercise 5: Thank you
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29
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Annex 1: Mystery picture 1
Annex 2: Mystery picture 2
Annex 3: Donkey drawing
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THEME INTRODUCTION
Goals of the module ‘Conflict and peace’:
Children have gained the insight and skills to deal with conflicts.
Sessions:
1 Types and causes of conflict
2 Conflicts in your own life
3 How to deal with conflict
4 Promoting a culture of peace
Session 1: Types and causes of
conflict
Goal: The children have become
aware of different types of
conflict and their causes.
Session 2: Conflicts in your own
life
Goal: The children have gained
analysed insight into the causes
and dynamics of the conflicts in
their own environment.
Session 3: How to deal with
conflict
Goal: The children have learnted
more peaceful ways to deal
with conflicts in their own
environmentlives.
Session 4: Promoting a culture
of peace
Goal: The children have gained
ideas and insight on how to
foster a culture of peace.
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WHAT IS CONFLICT?
We often associate the word ‘conflict’ with large-scale armed clashes: war, rebels,
and fighting. However, conflicts can also be small and less violent, for example
quarrels with friends, parents, or teachers. Conflicts may even exist within yourself.
This module addresses these smaller conflicts and helps us in searching for ways to
deal with them peacefully.
Conflict is a disagreement where the parties involved perceive a threat to their
needs, interests, or concerns. Peace is the absence of violence and a state of
harmony within and between people or groups.
Conflict as a part of life
Conflict can be seen as a natural part of human existence. People have different
values, opinions and interests that can clash from time to time. If you deal with those
clashes constructively, conflict can be a positive dynamic – a force of change for
the better. Peace is not only the absence of war or armed violence. Even in times of
peace people can still be marginalised, exploited and discriminated against.
A society in peace can still be unjust, unequal and mean. This is called ‘negative
peace’. ‘Positive peace’ is different. It is about social relationships, structures and
cultures that enhance the capacity of human beings. When there is positive peace,
groups and institutions manage conflicts non-violently and constructively.
We cannot avoid conflicts altogether, we have to deal with the conflicts that arise.
People will naturally disagree on certain matters. That is normal. The challenge is to
deal with the differences between people and find constructive solutions for them,
leading to positive peace.
Conflict analysis
Social conflicts are complex. They involve many actors in processes that are usually
complicated. Sometimes conflicts escalate in intensity and violence; other times
they quieten down. Then, again, they may fall back into violence, before taking a
new step towards peace. We can analyse what a conflict is about and in this way be
able to contribute to peaceful solutions. We can do this by looking at the stages a
conflict goes through and the levels at which the conflict is taking place.
We can ask the questions:
Who is involved? How are decisions made? What are the specific issues leading to
conflict?
A metaphor for processes of conflict is the life cycle of a fire:
•• Stage 1: Gathering materials for the fire
•• Stage 2: Fire is lit
•• Stage 3: Raging fire
•• Stage 4: Glowing coal
•• Stage 5: Everything cool again
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Stage 1: Gathering materials for the fire
Before a fire is started, materials for the fire are collected. Some of these materials
are dry and, ready to burn. There will not be a fire before someone lights it, but the
materials are there.
This stands for a potential conflict. Flammable materials in a social conflict may be
injustice, inequality or a fundamental difference in goals. In a smaller context, the
same ingredients apply. One of the children may, for instance, have long fostered a
longfeeling of jealousy towards another peer.
Stage 2: Fire is lit
In the next stage someone strikes a match. The fire starts to burn. The driest
materials, collected in the first stage, catch fire first.
In a conflict, the start of the fire is the confrontation. This can be a confrontation
between political parties, like a large public demonstration. Social unrest may
explode. At a lower level, between children, a certain mean remark may be the
match which sparks off the fight.
Stage 3: Raging fire
The fire burns as far and fast as it can, burning wildly out of control. Even the
materials that were not very dry in the beginning can be captured by the raging fire.
In terms of a conflict: the confrontation reaches a bigger crisis. In the largest
context, we speak of war. At a lower level, you could think of a child engaging in
fights structurally, involving more and more peers and getting angry about all kinds
of other things that had been under the surface before.
Stage 4: Glowing coal
At some point, the fire shrinks. All the fuel is burned. The flames largely vanish but
coals continue to glow. The fire seems to have disappeared, but new fuel would
immediately bring back the flames. In the metaphor, This stands for an unresolved
conflict. The signs of conflict may have died out, but the conflict is still alive. In this
stage, a conflict can either continue or cool down to a peaceful level. But new ‘fuel’
would re-ignite the old conflict.
Stage 5: Everything cool again
In the end, all fires go out; no more flames and no more burning coals. Everything is
cool again. The ashes remain. What is burnt is lost, but the place where the fire was,
is now safe. In this final stage of conflict, it is time to rebuild what has been lost and
let new things grow on the scorched earth.
Levels of conflict
Broadly speaking, we can distinguish four levels where conflict occurs:
1 Intrapersonal: thoughts, ideas and emotions which conflict within an individual
2 Interpersonal: a conflict between two or more individuals.
3 Intragroup: a conflict within a sports team, family, community or class.
4 Intergroup: a conflict between communities, gangs or ethnic groups.
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I understand that it is
very important to listen
to each other’s needs
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SESSION 1 Types and causes of conflict
Goal Children are aware of different types
of conflict and their causes
Resources 4 apples or small objects (like pens or
stones), mystery pictures.
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
1
2
3
4
Apple pickers (15 minutes)
The mystery figure (10 minutes)
Levels of conflict (50 minutes)
Thank you (10 minutes)
Exercise 1: Apple pickers (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: To warm up and to experience how a group cooperates
and how conflicts may arise.
Welcome the group: Welcome everybody!
Let’s start with a game to warm up.
Step 1. Place an apple (or another small object like a stone, pencil or stick)
in each of the corners of the space. If you are in the open air, place
these objects about 10 metres from a central point, in the four
directions of the compass.
Step 2. Make one team of 4 children and place them in the middle of the
room (or the central point, if in the open air). The team stands in a
circle but facing outwards, so with their backs to each other. They
link their arms together at the elbows.
Step 3. Ask each team member to pick up one apple (object) as quickly as
possible, without letting go of the other children in the team.
Explain to the team, that they are not allowed to speak.
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Step 4. The rest of the group watches the team. When the team has picked
up all the apples, ask the other children:
•• How long did it take the children to get their object?
•• Did they start working as a team or individually?
•• Was there a conflict in the process of getting the apples?
If so, how did they solve it?
If not, what prevented a conflict?
Step 5. Do a second round with another group of children and see if they
change their approach.
Group talk
Tell the group: In this game we saw a group of children acting out of
personal interest but because their elbows were linked, nobody could do
only his/her own thing. Situations like this can lead to a conflict. But if the
group cooperates, they can solve the problem without any difficulties.
In the coming sessions we will look at conflicts. We will see what type of
conflicts you experience in your life. And we will look at how to deal with
these conflicts in a positive way.
Ask the group: Can you explain or describe what a conflict is?
Let the children answer. Make sure they are not only talking about big
conflicts like war, but also about their own, smaller conflicts with for example
peers or parents.
Ask questions like:
Is conflict good or bad?
When is it good, when is it bad?
Can we always prevent a conflict from happening?
Should we always prevent it?
Tell the group: Conflict is a natural part of life. It is very difficult to always
prevent a conflict. Most people have a very negative view of conflict. They
feel it provokes anger and causes fights. Some people think it is a waste of
time. In reality, conflict does not always have to be a negative experience.
The important part is: how do people DEAL with a conflict. How do they
solve them. You can learn a lot from a conflict situation. Sometimes conflict
is even needed to ‘clear the air’ and move forward.
We will now do some exercises to show how a conflict can start.
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Exercise 2: The mystery figure (10 minutes)
Goal of the exercise: The children understand the concept of conflicting
perspectives.
Depending on your group and your own preference, choose one of the
following options:
Option 1:
Step 1. Write a large ‘3’ on a flipchart.
Step 2. Divide the group in to 4 groups.
Step 3. Put the flipchart on the floor. Ask each group to stand at 1 side of
the paper.
Step 4. Ask each group: what do you see?
Each group will see the figure from its own perspective. There are 4
perspectives: two groups will see a 3, one an M and one will see a W.
They may see other things as well.
Step 5. Ask the groups:
Which one of you is right?
The answer should be: all are right since they see it from their side,
from their own perspective!
Step 6. Ask the children if they can imagine the side of the other groups?
If not, let them move around to see the perspective from the other
groups.
Option 2:
Step 1. Show picture 1 to the group (see annex 1 at page 28).
Step 2. Ask some of the children to describe the image to the group.
Make sure they see both the vase and the two faces.
Option 3:
Step 1. Show picture 2 to the group (see annex 2 at page 29).
See either the back of the manual or click here on the website.
Step 2. Ask some of the children to describe the image to the group.
Make sure they see both the old and the young woman.
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Group talk
Ask the group: How come we can see the same thing in different ways?
Tell the group: That is hard to say, but we do. The same thing happens when
people are in conflict. They look at the same situation in different ways. Just
like with the pictures. A conflict is hard to resolve when those fighting say
that the other group is wrong and are not open to their ideas.
Exercise 3: Levels of conflict (50 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children understand that there are different types of
conflicts and levels of conflicts.
Step 1. Explain the 4 different levels of conflict to the children:
•• Intrapersonal: a conflict between thoughts, ideas, and emotions within an individual.
•• Interpersonal: a conflict between two or more individuals.
•• Intragroup: a conflict within a group: sports team, family, community or class.
•• Intergroup: a conflict between groups: communities, gangs, or ethnic groups.
Step 2. Divide the group into 4 groups. Assign one of the levels of conflict
to each of the 4 groups (each group gets a different level). Ask each
group to think of an example of this type of conflict. Preferably this
is a situation that they know of.
Step 3. Ask each group to make a ‘still image’ of their type of conflict.
Step 4. Invite the groups to show their image to the others. Ask the other
children if they recognise the type of conflict that is shown in each
image.
Step 5. Ask the children about their own experiences with this level of
conflict.
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Assignment for next time
Tell the group: As you have experienced in this session, conflicts come in
many different shapes and sizes. For next time, if you run into any kind of
conflict situation: try to think about what type of conflict it is. You can take
examples from conflicts where you yourself are involved, or conflicts you see
between others.
Think about the following questions:
•• What are the causes of the conflict?
•• Which are the differences in perception – what are the different ways people perceive the conflict?
Exercise 4: Thank you (10 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: To close the module with a positive feeling.
Step 1. Make a circle with all the children and ask them to hold hands.
Step 2. Explain to the children that together you’re all going to come to the
centre of the circle 3 times while bringing your hands forward.
The first time you all whisper “Thank you” with your hands low
down, the 2nd time you say “Thank you” with your hands in front of
you and the 3rd time you shout “Thank you” with your hands above
your heads.
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I sometimes get into
a fight with my best
friend... but we always
resolve it, by talking
to each other
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SESSION 2 Conflicts in your own life
Goal The children have analysed the causes and
dynamics of the conflicts in their environment.
Resources Flip chart, markers, objects (chairs or other
objects).
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chairs (25 minutes)
Analyse the situation (10 minutes)
Image of a conflict (10 minutes)
Bringing the image to life I (15 minutes)
Bringing the image to life II (15 minutes)
Counting together (5 minutes)
Exercise 1: Chairs (25 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children understand the causes and dynamics of
conflicts.
Welcome the group: Welcome everybody! Today, we will use last week’s
assignment as important input for this session. But let’s first start with an
exercise.
Step 1. Put enough chairs (or other objects like balls or cones) in a certain
(marked) area. There should be about the same number of objects
as there are active participants.
Step 2. Give each child a paper with one of these 3 instructions (A, B,C or D):
A: Put all the chairs (or other objects) in a circle.
B: Put all the chairs (or other objects) close to the door (or other point in your working space).
C: Put all the chairs (or other object) close to the window (or other point in your working space).
D: Observer. Stand at the side and watch what happens.
The children can read the instruction but shouldn’t show it to anyone
else.
The instructions can also be drawn on the cards or whispered into the ear of
each child.
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Step 3. Give the group 5 minutes to carry out their instruction.
You can choose if you allow the group to speak during the exercise,
or if they are not allowed to speak. In both cases they are not
allowed to reveal their instructions to others.
It is important to be able to stop the participants if they get carried away, so
beforehand you need to agree on a signal at which they will freeze or stop.
Group talk
Ask the group: (let the observers speak first):
•• Did you see conflicts?
•• What type of conflict did you see (intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup?).
•• How did the group/participants (try to) solve the problem?
•• Did anyone use physical force?
•• Did they follow their instruction at any cost?
•• How could they have solved the problem?
•• What can we learn from this exercise?
Now ask the participants:
•• What did you experience?
•• What problems/conflicts did you encounter?
•• How did you deal with the problems?
•• How did others deal with the problems?
•• Were they solved? How?
•• If not, what happened instead?
Tell the group: In this exercise, you had conflicting interests, because you had
different assignments. This is also the case in real life; people have different
interests, goals or needs. We all experience conflicts; it is part of our lives.
But sometimes it is hard to deal with conflict situations. What we will do in
this session is to investigate some examples of conflicts from our own lives in
order to understand them better. We will use role play for this. Sharing these
experiences may help us understand and deal with it. Now we come to last
time’s assignment.
Ask the group: Who experienced a conflict and would like to tell us about it?
Allow the children to tell their personal examples of conflict. Try to list the
examples of conflicts the participants come up with. If there are a lot, let the
children choose two conflict situations that are most common. You want to get
one concrete and relevant situation or incident so that the whole group can
identify with the situation, as you will be working with this for the rest of the
session.
From here up till exercise 5 you will focus on the chosen conflict situations that
the children just came up with to work further on.
First in exercise 2 you will analyse the situation, then in exercise 3 you will make
an image of the conflict (each child individually) and then in exercise 4 and 5
the group will bring the image to life to understand the dynamic even better.
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If you do have more time, take a second and third situation and go through all
the steps again.
Exercise 2: Analyse the situation (10 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children can analyse a conflict situation.
Tell the group: Together we will try to understand more about conflict
situations. Let’s look more closely at one of the conflict situations that some
of you mentioned.
Step 1. Choose a conflict situation.
Step 2. Ask the children about the 4 W’s (make notes for yourself):
•• What happened? (Story, let the children be specific, as factual as possible).
•• Who was involved? (Characters).
•• Where did it take place? (Location/setting).
•• When did it happen? (Time).
The 5th W, ‘Why did it happen?’ (motives) will be discussed during the
following exercises, so you don’t need to know this yet when you start. If the
children want to explain about the 5th W, the Why, tell them that we will deal
with that later and for now we just want to get the facts straight.
Exercise 3: Image of a conflict (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children have put themselves into somebody else’s
perspective.
Step 1. Ask the children to stand in a semi-circle.
Step 2. Ask the whole group to imagine the feelings of a main character
involved in a the conflict and express this.
For example: “Think of how the teacher felt when she saw a fight
going on in the class”, then clap and all the participants should make a
sound and a movement to express the teacher’s feelings at that time.
Step 3. Then take another character involved in the conflict. And again ask
all the children to imagine how that character felt about the conflict
and when you clap, they should express what they think that
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character felt through a sound and a movement.
Do this for all the important characters in the chosen conflict.
Now we are going to make a still group image of the conflict situation.
Step 4. Choose some children (depending on how many characters there
are in the situation that is being shown) and let them stand in front
of the semi-circle.
Step 5. Let one of the children (preferably the one that gave the example)
position or orchestrate the other children into an image of the
situation. Then let the other children look at the image and
comment on what they see.
Step 6. Ask the group how the conflict started. Make a new group image of
the moment when the conflict started.
Step 7. You can tap the shoulder of the different characters to get to know
more about how they feel – let the characters make one sound and
movement to share what they are feeling.
Exercise 4: Bringing the image to life I (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children express, visualise and reflect on the
chosen conflict situation.
This exercise is a continuation of exercise 3. The still image from exercise 3 is
the starting point for this exercise.
Step 1. Explain that with a clap you will bring the image to life, which means
that the children in the image can now start to act out the conflict.
Step 2. Depending on the situation, you can stop and start the scene and
discuss with the children what they see, what the motives of the
different characters are. (Tap the shoulder of the characters as a
check).
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Think of techniques like:
•• Switching roles: giving different children the chance to act.
•• Tapping their shoulder to hear what individual characters think and feel: in one sound/movement, one word, one sentence or a monologue.
•• Stopping and starting the scene to get additional input from the audience (Is this how it goes? What should happen now? What happened before? What happens in the future?)
Group talk:
Tell the group: Now that we have put this conflict situation into a role play,
we can do with it what we want, we can direct it. So let’s discuss what
direction we would like it to take?
Ask the group: What could be other possible solutions for this conflict? What
steps are needed to allow such a solution happen? Who would be involved?
Tell the group: We will now start finding solutions, but of course it takes
certain skills, practice and time to learn how to deal with conflicts in real life.
Next time there will be more room for practicing those skills.
Exercise 5: Bringing the image to life II (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children express, visualise and reflect on the
chosen conflict situation.
Step 1. Let a new group of children act out the proposed solution for the
conflict situation. This shouldn’t go on for longer than 5 minutes.
Step 2. Discuss with the children how realistic the solutions are, ask
questions like:
•• Could it happen like this in real life?
•• If not, why not?
•• And if yes, does it happen?
Step 3. End with a big applause for all the performers that were involved in
this session (ideally everybody was a performer at some stage).
Tell the group: In real life, many steps may be needed to find a solution to a
particular conflict. Tell the children that in the next session they will work on
the skills needed to deal with a conflict themselves.
Assignment for next time.
Tell the group: Think about what you learnt or liked most about playing
these scenes or observing them so that you can tell the group next time.
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Exercise 6: Counting together (5 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: Build group sensitivity, concentration and the capacity
to let others have their turn.
Step 1. The assignment for the group is to count up to 20 as a group while
following these rules:
•• You cannot speak other than to call out a number.
•• Only one person can speak at a time.
•• If two or more people call out the same number at once, the group must start with “1” again.
•• You cannot communicate with each other, even non-verbally.
Usually the counting has to start over several times before the group begins
to concentrate intensely. Let the group know that they do not need to rush
their counting; it is OK to have long pauses between numbers.
And they will be most successful if they can become sensitive to one another
and watch carefully to see who will be calling a number next.
Step 2. Give everyone a round of applause for trying.
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SESSION 3 How to deal with conflict
Goal The children have learnt some peaceful ways of
dealing with conflicts in their lives.
Resources Notes from last time (about the difficult situation with
peers).
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
1
2
3
4
Human knot (20 minutes)
Skills needed to solve a conflict (15 minutes)
Resolving a conflict in stages (40 minutes)
Zip zap boing (10 minutes)
Exercise 1: Human knot (20 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children have discussed and practiced the problem
solving process
Step 1. Ask a volunteer to step away from the group and to wait until he
or she is called back. He or she should not be able to see what is
going on, so stepping away and closing the eyes is also possible.
Step 2. Ask the remaining group to form a big circle, holding hands and
begin to form as many tangles by crossing over and under without
breaking the circle. What you see after doing this is a tangled web
of people’s hands together.
If the group is too big make 2 groups and let 2 volunteers do the untangling;
the group that is untangled first is the winner.
Step 3. Ask the volunteer back and tell them that the challenge now is to
untangle the web to form a perfect circle. Make sure that people
stay holding hands the whole time.
Step 4. When the group is untangled or approximately 5 minutes have
passed let them stop.
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Ask the group (begin with the volunteer):
•• What was it like to untangle the web?
•• What did you do to solve the tangle?
Ask the rest of the group:
•• When do we face entanglements like this in our lives and how do we undo them?
Exercise 2: Naming skills for solving conflicts (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children know skills that help them in solving
conflicts.
Group Talk
Ask the group: In our last meeting we acted out conflict situations. Let’s
look at last time’s assignment. Did you think about what you had learnt most
from playing the scenes? What was it?
Tell the group: So, different ways of how people deal with the conflict
have already been addressed. In this session, we will look more closely at
important skills that everybody needs to deal with conflicts. We are also
going to look at a conflict situation again and look more closely at the skills
needed and steps that can be taken to resolve that conflict.
Ask the group: What is important when dealing with a conflict?
Write down the answers. Go over the skills one-by-one and see if they can
be connected to the skills below. If they don’t mention the skills below then
you can explain the skills needed:
Skill 1. Listen:
for example:
•• Look at the person, and give them your full attention.
•• Ask questions once in a while, to make sure you understand what they are saying.
•• If you want to state your own opinion, wait untill after you have listened to the other.
Skill 2. Look – the ability to look at the situation from another person’s
perspective. Remember last time’s exercise; expressing the emotion
of each character involved in the conflict?
Skill 3. Say I not You – when involved in a conflict, begin with “I”
statements rather than “You” statements. For example: “I felt angry
because….” And not “YOU made me angry because…”.
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Exercise 3: Resolving a conflict in stages (40 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children’s analytical and conflict resolution skills
are strengthened.
Step 1. Together with the group, choose one of last time’s conflict situations
to work on.
Preferably choose a different situation to work with than you did the
last time.
Step 2. Ask one person to sculpt or orchestrate the number of children
needed to show the conflict situation.
Step 3. Let the other children look at the image created and comment on
what they see.
Step 4. As the facilitator you can now tap the shoulder of the different
characters to get to know more about how they feel – let the
characters make one sound and movement to share what they are
feeling.
Step 5. Now ask the same person to make the image of the moment that
the conflict is at it’s peak.
Step 6. Tell the group: last time you yourselves came up with a solution for a
conflict. This time we will also solve the conflict, only this time we will
do it in a structured way. By using the following steps we will resolve
this conflict:
a Clarify the needs:
Ask the two main characters (or parties) of the conflict to describe
what it is they need (they have to listen very well to each other,
remember the “You versus I” statement; they should not accuse
each other, but explain to the other person what it is they need).
b Identify the main issue:
Ask the children (the audience) to summarise the conflict’s main
issue.
What is this conflict really about? Then ask the group what could be
the common solution for the two sides.
c Generate alternatives:
Ask the group to list different possibilities to reach this. They should
only come up with ideas, not criticise the ideas of others.
d Evaluate alternatives:
What do the different sides in the conflict like about the ideas?
What do they not like? If one side doesn’t like an idea, how could it
be improved? Do the ideas meet the needs that were expressed in
stage a? Is the proposed method of solving the conflict realistic?
e Choose a solution:
Together with the group and the two sides, choose a solution. Make
sure everyone has the same understanding of the solution.
Step 7. Now ask the participants from the image to act out the solution. Ask
them to make it a very lively and expressive scene. Applaud for all
the performers.
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Assignment for next time
Tell the group: These stages of solving a conflict can be applied to almost
any type of conflict. See if you can remember the stages of solving the
conflict. Let’s say them all together again. If you can remember the stages,
choose one person (a friend, brother/ sister or another relative) to explain it
to and tell them about the situation that was put into a drama scene.
Can you explain the process to someone else?
Exercise 4: Zip zap boing (10 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: To close the session.
Step 1. Ask the group to stand in a circle and explain that we will pass around
an imaginary ball. We will do this by a gesture combined with the word
zip, or zap, or boing.
Step 2. When someone passes the ball to their left or right, they say ZIP and
make the gesture of passing the ball.
Step 3. Then the receiver passes the ball to someone across (anyone except
for their neighbours) and you say ZAP.
Step 4. When you do not want to receive a ball passed to you - through a ZAP
- you say BOING, and that means the ball is given back to the person
who threw it to you, who then needs to ZIP or ZAP someone else.
Step 5. Practice the instructions step by step; first a few rounds ZIP, then a
few rounds of ZAP, a few rounds of ZIP and ZAP, lastly adding
BOING to the game.
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SESSION 4 Promoting a culture of peace
Goal The children have gained ideas and insights
about how to foster a culture of peace.
Resources Papers (flip chart size), pens/crayons, enough
copies of the donkey drawing one for each
pair (cut into 6 pieces).
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise
1
2
3
4
5
Donkeys (15 minutes)
The peace talk (10 minutes)
Drawing together (30 minutes)
The peace action plan (20 minutes)
Thank you (5 minutes)
Exercise 1: Donkeys (15 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children have experienced that cooperation is often
needed to achieve a goal.
Welcome the group: Welcome everybody!
Ask the group:
•• Who did the assignment of last time?
•• Who did you explain the stages to?
•• Did everybody remember, or should they be repeated?
Maybe one of the children can repeat the stages of resolving conflict in their
own words.
Help them out where needed, make sure everyone has the steps clearly
before them.
Step 1. Divide the group into pairs and give each pair a donkey drawing cut
into 6 strips. The donkey drawing is included as annex 3 at page 30.
Step 2. Give them a few minutes to put the images in the ‘right’ order.
Step 3. Discuss the drawing according to the ‘stages to resolve conflict’
that were introduced last time (ask the children, they can define it in
their own way):
a
b
c
d
e
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Clarify the needs: Each donkey needs the pile of food.
Identify the main issue: The donkeys want to eat the food but
because they are tied to each other they can’t reach the food.
Generate alternatives: They can give up. They can keep pulling
until the linebreaks. One can hurt the other and eat all the food.
They can eat the food piles together one by one.
Evaluate alternatives: Ask the children what they think.
Choose a solution: The solution of eating the food piles together
one by one is chosen; this way the needs of both donkeys are
fulfilled in a peaceful way.
Step 4. What could the title of this drawing be? Let the group come up
with a title. For example: ‘Cooperation is better that conflict’ is one
possibility.
Exercise 2: The Peace talk (10 minutes)
Goal of the exercise: The children develop their own definition of peace.
Ask the group:
•• What is peace?
•• What does peace mean to you?
In the same pairs as for the donkey exercise, try to discuss and come up
with a definition of peace.
Ask different children to tell what they come up with.
Key terms can be:
Peace is a getting along well together.
Peace is solving arguments without it becoming violent.
Peace is respecting each other and each other’s differences.
Peace is being part of the same world without fighting.
Peace is having room for to grow and learn safely.
Peace is being kind to others.
Peace is in everyone’s hands.
Exercise 3: Drawing together (30 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children are stimulated to cooperate with each
other and draw their own vision of a peaceful environment.
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Step 1. Make groups of 4 and give each group a big piece of paper (poster
size).
Step 2. Let the groups brainstorm on what a peaceful environment (within
their family, their community, or country) looks like.
Step 3. Let each group make a picture of a peaceful environment. You can
let the children use different art materials, whatever you can find at
hand.
Step 4. When they are ready each group can present their drawing to the
rest of the group. Ask them to tell what they made and why.
Make sure that you compliment the children on their artwork. Find something
special in each of them and point this out to the group.
Exercise 4 The Peace Action Plan (30 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: The children have thought about how they can
personally take action to contribute to create a peaceful environment in their
communities.
Step 1. Keep the same groups from the previous exercises. Each group
should now think of how they themselves can contribute to a
peaceful environment.
Give them the following questions to think about:
•• How can they themselves help to make their family, community or country look as peaceful as in their drawings?
(Of course they cannot just change everything, but there may be small actions they can undertake and remind them that everyone even the smallest child has a role to play.)
•• What steps could they as individuals or as a group take within their families or their community?
Let them be as specific as possible.
Small-scale actions are fine (many small bricks make one big building).
Step 2. Let the groups present their ideas and together list the ideas that
are brought forward into a ‘Peace Action Plan’.
Step 3. Ask the children to assign him/herself one or two (realistic) tasks/
actions, either to be implemented individually or together with
others in pairs/small groups.
The Peace Action Plan can contain:
•• The actions.
•• Who will execute the actions.
•• When they will take place.
•• How they will be executed.
•• How often they will be executed.
Step 4. Propose to the group to look at the plan every month to see which
actions have already taken place and if they have been carried
out successfully, i.e. resulted in positive changes towards peace.
Assign one child who will remind the group to look at the Peace
Action Plan.
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When putting together the ‘Peace Action Plan’ it is your task as facilitator to
cluster 2 or more of the same/similar ideas into one who can work together.
Reflection: module evaluation.
Evaluate the module, by presenting questions like:
•• What have we done? What games/exercises do you remember?
•• What was easy, what was difficult for you?
•• What have you learned about this theme?
•• Did you already use something you learned in I DEAL in your daily life?
•• If so, how? If not, what is keeping you from using it?
•• Did you miss anything?
•• What else would you have liked to learn about this theme?
Exercise 5: Thank you (5 minutes).
Goal of the exercise: To close the module with a positive feeling.
Step 1. Make a circle with all the children and ask them to hold hands.
Step 2. Let all the children come to the centre of the circle while whispering
“Thank you”.
Step 3. Repeat the last step, but this time, say “thank you” while bringing
your hands in front you.
Step 4. Repeat the step for the last time. This time, shout “Thank you” and
put your hands above your head. If there isn’t a nice build-up when
you do this, try it a second time.
You could also end with a local or familiar peace song.
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ANNEX 1
28
ANNEX 2
29
ANNEX 3
30
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