Culture of Peace

We understand the Culture of Peace as a paradigm which offers opportunities and conditions for a healthful society, since it is based on values, positive attitudes and behaviours which ought to orient and enable human beings toward living together in a peaceful and democratic way. 
 

Non-violence, respect for difference, life, freedom, and participation based on equal opportunities, without distinction in terms of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, religion, or political association, are some of the fundamentals we set out in order to construct the basis for a Culture of Peace in which people are recognized holistically in their vast human dimensions.

• To contribute to meetings between cultures in order to share their knowledge and experiences on Peace Education, Human Rights and positive transformation of Conflicts on a local and global level, having reconciliation as a goal.
• To contribute to Peace Building by identifying social and cultural clues which facilitate and enrich mutual experiences in terms of a Culture of Peace.
• To design and participate in international cooperative projects which help articulate proposals on Development, Human Rights and Peace.

International cooperative projects in place in 2007

• EduPaz: Educational Programme on Conflicts and Values for a Peaceful and Democratic Coexistence (2005-2007 ).
  
  

  Co-financed by the Diputación Foral de Bizkaia, Gernika Gogoratuz Association (País Vasco), Fundacomunidad and Gogoratuces Caqueteños (Colombia). Working fields: Two municipalities of the Caquetá region, San Vicente del Caguán and Florencia. The latter is the capital of Caquetá, and holds the highest rate of people displaced by armed conflict in Colombia.

  Goals: To train 120 people in achieving knowledge and tools in education on Peace, democracy, coexistence, and the treatment of Conflict in a creative, pacifistic and democratic way. Each of these trainers will then train another 40 people. It is intended that in this way about 4,800 people will be reached who will subsequently transmit and work with their newly-achieved knowledge and tools.

   
• Manoa: Playful Education for the Young (2006-2008)
  
  

  Co-financed by the Diputación Foral de Bizkaia, Gernikatik Mundura, Ideasur, Gernika Gogoratuz Association (País Vasco), University of the Amazon and Fundacomunidad (Colombia). Working fields: 16 municipalities of the Caquetá Department, Colombian Amazon.

  Goals: To create a mobile unit consisting of people and educational tools that will tour different municipalities of the Caquetá Department, carrying out their work in different educational institutions in order to train young people in topics like the Culture of Peace, how to engage in associations and democratic participation. Through playful, educational, cultural and social activities, these young people will acquire the values of democracy and learn how to stand up for human rights, respect the environment and live harmoniously together.

   

International Cooperative Projects already finished

• Manigua: Programme on Treatment of Conflict and Human Rights (2004-2006)
  
  

  Co-financed by Cooperation and Development Funds of the Department of Immigration of the Basque Government (Consejería de Vivienda y Asuntos Sociales), Gernika Gogoratuz Association (Basque Country) and the University of the Amazon, Colombia (la Universidad de Amazonia).

  Goals: Promotion of and campaign for Human Rights and Treatment of Conflict in the Department of Caquetá with possibilities to spread to the Colombian Amazon Region. The project was coordinated by the Social-Political Observatory of the Colombian Amazon, which belongs to the University of the Amazon, together with Gernika Gogoratuz, Association for Peace Investigation. The programme MANIGUA developed two basic lines of work, training and investigation, on topics pertaining to the fields of Peace Education, Democracy and Human Rights.

   

• Participation in Social and Academic Spaces
  Since 1991 the work team of Gernika Gogoratuz has been engaged in training and investigation in several social spaces of different Colombian cities, as well as in academic spaces of the Universities Javeriana in Bogotá and Cali, Amazonia, Antoquia, and the Bolivariana in Bucaramanga, in Magdalena, among others.

• Cruz Artunduaga, Fernando. Tesis titulada Educar para gestionar conflictos en una sociedad fragmentada. Una propuesta educativa para una Cultura de Paz, 2008.


• Barón, Marvel; Ramírez, Roberto; Gasca Milena and Quiñones, Mireya; Pabón, Martha and Calderón, Ángela Patricia (local investigation team) and Mendia, Irantzu y Alberdi, Jokin (international advisors):Cambio de roles de género y de niveles de empoderamiento de las mujeres en el marco del conflicto social y armado de Colombia. Caso Caquetá en el marco del Proyecto Manigua en Derechos Humanos y Tratamiento de conflictos (Changes in gender roles and levels of empowerment among women affected by social and armed conflict in Casco Caqueta, Colombia, part of the Manigua Project in Human Rights and Treatment of Conflicts) with the University of the Amazon, Colombia 2006.


• Cruz Artunduaga, Fernando:Los sentidos en el conflicto (Feelings during conflict). Escuela, Interacción y Paz, 2004.


• Cruz Artunduaga, Fernando:Conocer y reconocer las Culturas: Una experiencia para aproximar posiciones desde las tradiciones (Knowing and Recognizing Cultures: An experience in approaching traditional positions) In: Vinyamata, Eduard (coord.): Camins de Pau al País Basc. Barcelona, Mediterrania, 2001.

Fernando Cruz Artunduaga
Coordinator for the areas of Culture and Peace and Peace Education.