Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

In this week’s website of World Forum Foundation there was an article entitled War or Peace and Peas. This article spoke written in the Exchange Every Day by Betsy Evans of a test done on children to see if they knew the difference between war and peace.   This article was of so much interest that it was replicated at a program in Mumbai, India between the ages of 4 and 5.  The program took 50 girls and 50 boys for this experiment, asking questions about war and peace.  After the discussion, “39 girls were able to understand and explain the word war, the rest were confused. All 50 boys were able to understand and explain the word war in some violent context. All 100 kids were NOT able to talk or relate to the word peace.” (Popat-Vats, 2013)  The children were then asked to draw what they think war and peace is and most of the children drew pictures of “swords, fighting, bombs, army warriors, etc.” (Popat-Vats, 2013)  But when it came to the children drawing pictures relating to peace they drew items like “bread piece, pizza piece, pieces of chocolate, glass pieces, green peas.” (Popat-Vats, 2013)  Like the administrators of the assignment I thought the children were confused the word peace with the word piece.  After further conversation with the children the administrators noted that the children had no real understanding of what peace was or what represented peace.  While the children gained their knowledge of war through violence seen in video games, television, computers, or newspapers they never acquired peacefully situations.  This lead to a project in the program entitled ‘Peace’.   “The ‘PEACE’ project to help kids understand war: why it happens; why it is bad; what is peace; how war can be converted to peace; how peace is a solution so that fights do not happen; noisy and peaceful; and many more such ideas.” (Popat-Vats, 2013)  After this project was conducted children were then able to correlate what peace is and not pieces.

Another article on the website of World Forum Foundation was on the World Forum in Action- Working Group on Children’s Rights.  This short article spoke of the children’s rights group that was formed in 2012 will be having a article in the special issue of the Exchange magazine in July/August.  The article will speak about the rights of children and adults.  It will answer questions like, “What does it look like when children’s rights are honored and respected?” and “What does the concept of taking children’s ideas and opinions seriously really mean?” The issue will address cultural issues surrounding rights and the notion of children and adult rights colliding. Narratives about rights from contexts around the world will highlight accomplishments and challenges, as well as strategies for overcoming obstacles.” (World Forum Foundation, 2013)

 

Resources

Popat-Vats, S. (2013).  War and Peace or War and Peas!  World Forum Foundation.  Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/news/war-and-peace-or-war-and-peas/

World Forum Foundation. (2013). World Forum in Action – Working Group on Children’s Rights.  World Forum in Action.  Retreived form http://ccie-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wfaw/wfia-210.pdf