Exploring the Work of Peacebuilders

About This Lesson 

This two-part lesson helps teachers assist their pupils in exploring what peace is and the role we can all play in securing peaceful communities and societies. 

In the first part of the lesson, students reflect on what peace is, why it is important and what it looks like in practice, before exploring the work of peacebuilding organisations and individuals around the world.

In the second part of the lesson, students explore the concepts of peace and reconciliation. They reflect on the different responses available to people after they experience harm and on the power of seeking reconciliation over vengeance, and consider the inner work required to push for peaceful solutions.

Learning Objectives

• To understand what peace is, why it is important and what it looks like in practice. 

• To explore the work of peacebuilding organisations and individuals. 

• To recognise the power of peace and reconciliation. 

• To understand that peace work starts with self-work and that all individuals can develop the skills needed to build peace.

Part 1

Activity 1: Reflect on Peace

Inform students that in today’s lesson they will be learning about organisations and individuals around the world who are committed to pushing for peace and reconciliation in response to violence and conflict. 

To begin, ask students to respond to the following questions in their journals: 

1. What words do you associate with peace? 
2. How would you define the word peace? 
3. What does peace look like in practice? It might help to think about what a peaceful park, street, classroom or relationship might look like.  

Extension Task: How can peace be achieved? What needs to happen for people to be able to interact in peaceful ways? 

Ask students to share their thoughts in pairs before inviting some students to share their thoughts with the class. 

You may then choose to share the following two definitions of peace: ¹  

• Freedom from war and violence, especially when people live and work together happily without disagreements.
• The state of not being interrupted or annoyed by worry, problems, noise, or unwanted actions.

Activity 2: Engage with Quotations on Peace

Next, project some/all of the following quotations on peace and invite students to read them and select two to three of their favourites and discuss them using the questions in groups or pairs: 

Discussion Questions: 

• What is this quotation saying about peace? 
• How far do you agree with it? 

Quotations: 

• Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding – Albert Einstein
• An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind – Mahatma Gandhi
• Peace cannot exist without justice – Rigoberta Menchú Tum
• Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways – Dalai Lama
• If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence here and now, in the present – Mairead Maguire
• Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves – William Hazlitt
• If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies – Desmond Tutu
• It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it – Eleanor Roosevelt
• Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that – Martin Luther King Jr.

Once students have engaged with the quotations, lead a short class discussion inviting students to share their thoughts on these quotations and how, if at all, they have furthered their understanding of peace.

Activity 3: Learn About Peacebuilders

Next, inform students that they will be learning about peacebuilding organisations, initiatives and individuals around the world. Explain that peacebuilding can take many forms: it can take the form of ending conflict, healing trauma caused by conflict, reflecting on what peace means and what it can look like and bringing people together across dangerous divides. 

Place slides 10-21 of the PowerPoint Exploring the Work of Peacebuilders around the room. 

Ask students to circulate using the Gallery Walk strategy and independently to read the content and respond to the following questions: 

1. What is the focus of the work of the individual/organisation/initiative? 
2. How does their work build peace? 
3. How does their work extend your understanding of peace and/or connect to the quotations you engaged with in the previous activity? 

Depending on the time you allocate, students may not have the chance to review all examples.

 At the end of the allocated time, once students have returned to their seats consider displaying slide 22 to help students understand where some of the different individuals/organisations operate. 

Then, lead a short class discussion inviting students to share their responses to the questions and any other reflections they had while reviewing the peacebuilding initiatives, organisations and individuals. 

You might also incorporate the following questions into the class discussion: 

1. What are the similarities and differences between how these examples approach peacebuilding? 
2. Why do you think there are a range of approaches? 
3. What does this diversity teach us about peacebuilding as a concept?  

Activity 4: Reflect on Peacebuilding

Ask students to reflect on the content covered so far by journaling on the following questions: 

1. What is peacebuilding?
2. Why is it important? 
3. What do you think it takes to be a peacebuilder? 

If there is time, invite some students to share their reflections.

• 1 ‘Peace’, The Cambridge Dictionary (accessed 17 September 2024).

Part II

Activity 1: Reflect on Responses

Inform students that they will be reflecting on the different responses available to people after difficulty, harm or hardship. 

Explain that experiences of difficulty, harm and hardship exist on a spectrum from inconveniences to catastrophes and atrocities, and that while the incidents students recall in this activity are likely to differ in the scale and degree of the harm of some of the examples explored in these lessons, the activity helps students connect to feelings and mindsets that can encourage or obstruct peacebuilding and conflict resolution. 

Ask students to do an independent journal task reflecting on the following questions, informing them that they will not be required to share their responses.

• Think about a time when you acted a certain way because you were upset or angry. 
  • What was the situation that triggered these emotions?
  • How did you act in response to these emotions?
  • What were the consequences of this response? Did they lead to further repercussions?
  • How else might you have responded? 
  • How would a different response have impacted the subsequent consequences? 

Allow students to keep their responses private and lead a class discussion using the following questions as prompts:

1. When people are angry or upset how do they tend to behave? 
   • Why?
   • How might such responses create a cycle of hurt/prevent peaceful resolutions? 
2. Why, if people seek revenge, might this prevent them from gaining a sense of peace? 
3. Why might securing societal peace also be dependent on inner work and securing inner peace? 
4. What do you think people need to do to find peace after suffering and harm? 

Activity 2: Discuss Peace and Reconciliation

Explain to students that they will be further reflecting on the power of peace and reconciliation as a response to harm. Distribute the handout Seeking Peace and Reconciliation and read it as a class, checking for student comprehension. Then, divide students into groups and ask them to discuss the connection questions. 

Next, lead a short class discussion, inviting students to share their views.

You might also choose to spend focused time discussing the second part of question 2 as this presents the potential for conflict to be viewed as something that can create connection, which may sound surprising and/or counter-intuitive to some students. 

• How does Moore view conflict? How far do you agree with her views?

Activity 3: Reflect on Ways to Respond to Hurt

Finally, ask students to reflect on the following prompts in their journals: 

‘If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.’  ¹

Richard Rohr, priest and writer

1. What does it mean to transform one’s pain?
   • How does this relate to inner work?  
2. Why might not transforming pain mean we transmit it and perpetuate cycles of hurt or harm? 
3. Which ideas will you take from today’s lesson and how will you apply them to your own lives?

To finish the lesson, ask students to share one takeaway in a Wraparound.

• 1Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer: A New Edition of A Lever and a Place to Stand (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014).