Peace project

PEACE project; PEACE Cross-cultural Understanding (PEACE - teaching tolerance till 2008) has been organized annually by AIESEC in Poland, Local Committee SGH - Warsaw School of Economics since 2002 Its goal is to spread tolerance and cross-cultural understanding in Poland. Each year international students are invited to give lessons in Polish secondary schools.

History

The inventor and the first organizing committee president of the project was Ann Svenson, a student and AIESEC member from Denmark. When she was in Poland she witnessed violent acts of intolerance among Polish youth. She decided to set up a project that would prevent the young generation from such behaviour. From than on the project has been run successfully under the name PEACE – Teaching Tolerance. PEACE abbreviation stands for People’s Enthusiasm Acting for Cultural Education. In year 2008 the name was changed to PEACE Cross-Cultural Understanding and the formula was extended due to the growing number of similar projects and new needs in Polish society.

Project flow

The project lasts two months: it begins in February and ends in March. International students incorporated in AIESEC come to Warsaw School of Economics. After they pass a series of trainings they are divided in groups and go to different Polish towns to give lessons in secondary schools. In the middle of the project trainees rejoin in Warsaw to share their experience and create new groups in which they continue their educational trip trough Poland. The project ends with a summary weekend when students evaluate the project and draw conclusions. The new extended formula provides the Model of United Nations at the end of the project. Both international trainees and Polish pupils are supposed to work out solutions to the problems mentioned in United Nations Millennium Development Goals as they represent various countries of the world during the Model.

Results

During seven editions of the project Poland was visited by 165 international students from such countries as Armenia, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Peru, Turkey, USA . Approximately they have visited 400 schools therefore reaching 20 thousand Polish students. Up to 2006 the project has been supported by United Nations Development Programme. Due to the closing of UNDP department in Poland project organizers turned to new partners among which are Amnesty International and Rotary International.

Links

* [http://www.sgh.aiesec.pl/peace] - PEACE official website
* [http://www.aiesec.org] - AIESEC International
* [http://www.sgh.aiesec.pl] - AIESEC in Poland, Local Committee SGH (Warsaw School of Economics)

Source

PEACE Cross-cultural Understanding Organizing Committee