Over the past few weeks, the Graines de Paix Foundation’s APEV-Transformation program has continued its deployment in the commune of Malanville, through several training and community animation sessions. Village and neighborhood chiefs, religious leaders, women, young people and parents have all been mobilized around the issues of education, living together and supporting children.
A shared need: better support for children
Beyond the diversity of contexts, a common observation emerged from these meetings: families and communities express a strong need for concrete tools to support children’s education, while reinforcing the educational framework.
Discussions focused on very concrete everyday situations: parent-child relationships, the place of emotions in education, the effects of certain educational practices, parental involvement in school success, and the quality of dialogue within the home and community.
Teaching tools to help practices evolve
The sessions enabled participants to discover and experiment with various tools from the Graines de Paix pedagogy:
non-violent communication, a parent-child charter, educational sanctions that help children grow up without putting them down, work on emotions, self-esteem and parental responsibility.
These approaches promote ways of educating that set a clear framework, while preserving the child’s dignity and development, and open up spaces for collective reflection on educational practices within families and communities.
Encouraging community mobilization
The high level of participation and the quality of the exchanges testify to the real commitment of local players. Parents, community leaders and religious leaders expressed their satisfaction and their desire to capitalize on the skills acquired during these training sessions to achieve lasting improvements in family and community living together.
As some parents put it at the end of the discussions:
“Children are tomorrow’s sun or storm.”
Towards sustainable peace education
These first sessions are an encouraging step in the implementation of the APEV-Transformation program in Malanville. By providing families and communities with clear educational guidelines and tools adapted to local realities, the program helps to prevent tensions, strengthen social cohesion and lay the foundations for sustainable peace education.