Course information

Programme

The summer school programme will start on Monday 17 July and will end on Friday 21 July. Recommended departure date: Saturday 22 July. We recommend participants to arrive before Sunday 16 July, 3PM, so they can participate in the city tour and welcoming drinks.

Download the programme

Download the proceedings of the 2017 summer school

Lecturers

Dr. Cuthbert Tukundane (Uganda),
Dr. Margaret Angucia (Uganda),
Gloria Almeyda Stemper, MSc. (Colombia),
Miguel Arturo Fajardo Rojas, MSc. (Colombia),
Dr. Jeebanlata Salam (India),
Prof. Dr. Victor Friedman (Israel),
Dr. Michal Razer (Israel),
Izabel S. Ramadan, MSc. (Israel),
Dr. Mieke Lopes Cardozo (The Netherlands),
Dr. Josje van der Linden (The Netherlands),
Prof. Dr. Jacques Zeelen (The Netherlands).

Methods used

Lectures, groupwork, discussions, presentations, assignments

EC/Certificate of Attendance

A certificate of attendance will be awarded.

Topics

Living in the shadow of violence, from womb to tomb, I open this discussion in despair. Yet, deep down inside I am hopeful that we will live in a violence free society someday. Life in northeast India is often locked up in violent eruptions, which traverse between moments of deep sorrow and a heart longing for peace and justice. Young people often struggle to cope with a devastated and estranged life that is often described as a lost or disengaged generation. Children live in a world where peace, safety and protection are elusive. A child is ever innocent, trustful, bright, and inquisitive; he/she learns fast with unique ways of feeling, seeing and perception of their immediate social world. A child’s journey into adulthood is just like the journey of a tree or a flower from a bud. How then, a child growing up in a wretched society, which lacks love, compassion and dialogue, can freely develop with a loving, compassionate and happy soul!

Dr. Mieke Lopes Cardozo: the Role of Formal and Non-Formal Education for Youth Agency for Peace: a Synthesis Report on Findings from Myanmar, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda

I am presenting empirical insights from four country studies (Myanmar, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda) on the topic of youth agency for peacebuilding, and the role of non-formal and formal education in fostering or hindering such spaces. I reflect on the processes of knowledge generation about youth peacebuilding agency across diverse conflict-affected contexts, through a ‘critical cultural political economy of education’ approach that explores young people’s agency and empowerment. By building on the 4Rs analytical model, the report analyses youth agency for peacebuilding, through studying: 1) political agency (representation); 2) economic/sustainable livelihoods (redistribution); 3) socio-cultural relations/identity formation (recognition); and 4) dealing with the past and building trust (reconciliation). The report highlights the importance of the voices, needs youth-led strategies/movements. This requires a context-specific, conflict-sensitive and cultural political economy understanding of the challenges and opportunities that various youth constituencies are faced with, and how education initiatives (fail to) respond to this.

Miguel Fajardo, MSc. and Gloria Almeyda, MSc. : Education and Peace Building: A View from Colombia

Undoubtedly one of the crucial problems of humanity in the current world scenario is insufficient decent employment for youth. Studies indicate that the processes of economic globalization and technological development have significantly reduced sources of employment. In addition to fewer jobs, the informal sector has grown, and thousands of people on all continents are forced to migrate in search of employment opportunities. In the case of Latin America, from Chile and Argentina, to Mexico and the Caribbean, the slight economic growth in the region results in the growth of the informal economy, as well as the unemployment and underemployment rates.

Colombia, however, now finds itself facing a new and unique scenario since the government signed peace agreements with the FARC-EP. The agreements’ peace building strategies are built upon a commitment to transform the structural problems affecting the country’s society. The strategies seek to address a) fostering social equity for peasants, indigenous people, women, and Colombians living under the poverty index, b) carrying out an integral rural reform, c) securing pluralistic citizen participation and political rights, (d) overcoming problems arising from the cultivation, processing, and marketing of illicit crops, e) making reparations to victims impacted by the conflict’s armed actors, and f) incorporating the FARC-EP in national life as a political party.

In this context, this presentation aims to answer the following:

1. What are the key aspects of the peace agreements signed between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP, especially relating to the education of and work opportunities for Colombian youth?
2. Within the solidarity territory in the southern provinces of Santander, what strategies are being developed to generate and promote sources of decent employment for Columbian youth?
3. What other peace building situations can provide lessons relevant to a post-conflict Colombia?

Dr. Josje van der Linden: Youth Agency in (Post-)Conflict Areas

Conflicts disrupt people's lives and are detrimental to the life perspectives of those who never got a chance to construct a firm base for an independent life worthy of living. Yet, only regarding youth as victims who missed education and decent work opportunities does not do justice to the experience and resilience they developed in conflict situations. Research conducted on youth, education and work in (post-)conflict situations reveals that youth who live in these areas show agency, even within the limited possibilities they have. The capability approach complemented with concepts of social learning and power relations serves to analyse competencies, needs and initiatives of youth in the perspective of (re)building livelihoods for individuals and communities. The contribution to the summer school will focus on ‘youth agency’ as a concept to be taken on board in the ongoing debate in group work and lectures in the summer school.

Dr. Margaret Angucia: Images of conflict youth and youth resilience in post conflict northern Uganda

Perspectives on conflict youth usually present them as angry and disaffected. Moreover, they are portrayed as likely sources of new unrest who normally live uprooted in a broken community where societal structures and cohesion are lost and values and norms diminished (Twum Danso, 2005; Angucia, 2010). Demobilised and reintegrated post-conflict youth are further considered to be vulnerable – engaging with illicit drugs, violence, militias and urban gangs. These perspectives result from the view of post conflict youth as being trapped in a state of victimhood - vulnerable, helpless, disempowered, poor and security threats (Sommers, 2006).This presentation based on two fieldwork researches will focus on stories of resilience and youth political participation as ways of rebuilding their lives in post conflict northern Uganda.