"The Nobel Prize makes the concept of peace tangible for students"

Maarten: "The Flemish Peace Institute is an independent research institute founded by and affiliated to the Flemish Parliament. The institute's mission is to conduct policy- and practice-oriented peace research in an independent manner. One of our research lines is peace education. We want to inspire teachers, domes, nets and pedagogical supervisors with scientifically based information to get pupils thinking about themes such as peace, war and conflict."

"Those concepts are, of course, very big and complex. But they are also inseparable from human coexistence. Just look at the war in Ukraine. If you live together with other people, conflicts will arise. Even in the classroom. As a teacher, you cannot avoid such conflicts, but you can use them as learning opportunities: how do you deal with conflict?"

"But after the first edition, we noticed that one day was insufficient to capture a complex theme like peace. So we asked Djapo to develop an educational package as a prelude to the day in the Flemish Parliament. The educational material not only had to excite young people around complex questions such as "What is peace?" and "What is conflict?". It also had to be suitable for schools of different nets and different forms of education. No mean feat!"

"A first version of the work bundle was tested by the three schools participating in our 2023 Nobel Peace Prize trajectory: the Atheneum Wispelberg (urban education Ghent), the Koninklijk Atheneum Antwerpen (GO!) and the Heilig Hart Institute Heverlee (Catholic Education Flanders). Together with us, Djapo drew up an evaluation form for the pupils and also scheduled feedback moments with some teachers. Based on this new input, Sien reworked the work bundles into a generic teaching package on peace. Classes that do not vote in the Flemish Parliament can also start working with the teaching package from the 2023-2024 school year."