International Webinar on ‘Non-violence: A Developmental Pillar for Human Race’
Aug 14th, 2020 | Admin
The Peace Forum at PKM College of Education and IQAC in association with Peace and Harmony Foundation, Kannur conducted an International Webinar on the topic, ‘Non-violence: A Developmental Pillar for Human Race’ on the 14th of August via Zoom. The webinar saw the participation of over 50 people from various walks of life such as students, teacher-trainers, teachers and activists.
Jain James, a second-year student at the college compered at the webinar that started at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The webinar began with a prayer song and Sr. Caroline FCC, programme coordinator and teacher-educator at the Department of Language Education, Malayalam welcomed the participants. She dwelled upon the role that teachers play in peace building and stressed on the need for new generation teachers to understand the need for instilling ideals of non-violence in their students. She spoke on the achievements of the Peace Forum at PKM College which has successfully conducted multiple college level and intercollegiate activities over the past few years. The programme convener and principal of PKM College, Dr. Jessy NC gave a foreword to the webinar and explained projects of the College such as ‘Next Generation Teachers at PKM’ and the various activities of the College Peace Forum.
Dr Jill Car Harris a noted activist in the fields of women empowerment, environment protection and peace making gave a lecture on ‘Linking Classroom Work to an External Campaign’ by sharing insightful thoughts and her own life experiences in areas ranging from the business of war, violence in media and indirect violence to responses to violence and non-violence education.
Then Dr Rajagopal PV delivered a lecture on ‘Key Concepts of Non-violence’ and shared his experiences regarding restoring peace to an area plagued with incidents of violence and crime. He spoke about brokering peace deals between extremists and the establishment and the act of convincing criminals to give up their life of violence to start afresh in life.
A presentation of music videos based on peace and non-violence followed. Mr. Jay from the Jai Jagat Campaign presented these videos and a documentary on the Jai Jagat foot march from Delhi to Geneva via screen sharing.
Dr Scaria Kalloor delivered a lecture on ‘Non-violent Practice and Classroom Application’ wherein he shared his thoughts on propagating peace and harmony in the society through students. He stressed on the importance of classroom activities including various competitions and projects such as handicraft work.
The students and faculty actively participated in the interactive session that ensued. Ms Sweetymol Shaji, Student Coordinator of the Peace Forum proposed the Vote of Thanks. The webinar concluded with the National Anthem.
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Overall learning objective:
To review the theory and practise of nonviolence specifically in regard to education.
Sub-learning objectives:
To review some of the key concepts of non-violence (such as direct and indirect violence transformative nonviolence, etc).
To review Gandhi’s educational methods and to determine whether there is relevance in Kerala’s context today
To discuss some of the nonviolent practices (such as the Jai Jagat march and trainings as well as the experience from the Peace and Communal Harmony network.
To discuss how to bring these nonviolent practices into the classroom in the form of peace clubs, fasts, school cleanliness programs inter religious festivals, creating peace through the arts, and so forth.
