Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

These modules were created to support the UNHCR-DRC project titled “Social Cohesion, SGBV & Child Protection in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei
Settlement.” The aim of these training modules is to support Activity 8.7: Engage existing gender clubs on peacebuilding and peaceful co-existence. The tool will
help facilitate discussion and activities within schools and with out-of-school adolescents and youth on peacebuilding and peaceful coexistence.

Preconditions for delivery of training modules:

 If these sessions are to be facilitated in existing gender clubs then the facilitation team
should include one member of the AVR team and one member of staff running the
gender club in a co-facilitation model
 Facilitators should have prior experience working with the target age group or have
undergone a basic child protection training (if target group is under the age of 18)
 Facilitators should have a strong understanding of child protection principles in addition
to the Children’s Act in Kenya (if target groups is under 18)
 Facilitators need to have previous experience delivering conflict management or
peacebuilding training modules

Key points to keep in mind when facilitating sessions with children and adolescents:

 Generally, this target audience has energy in abundance so it’s important for the
facilitator(s) to keep similar levels of energy and sets the tone for constructive
interactions*
 Understand the subtleties of the classroom – there can be sensitivities around bullying,
peer pressure or other dynamics that need to be understood when targeting and
grouping participants for exercises
 Allow appropriate time for reflection or debrief of exercise and ideas
 Be as inclusive and as adaptive as possible
 This is not a vertical transfer of knowledge – rather we are trying to create a safe space
where children and adolescents can share their feelings and can be part of finding
peaceful solutions to the problems or conflicts they are facing in their daily lives
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

*Annex 1 – list of ice-breakers or energizers that can be used at any point when facilitator feels energy is low in the room.

Session 0 – Introductory Session

The Peace Clubs curriculum seeks to address students across a large age-span. Teachers play an integral part in tailoring the lessons to match the
age group of their club.

If you feel that the ideas are too complex for your students, consider breaking the lessons into smaller components to be addressed one at a
time.

Using many examples to illustrate a new concept is also helpful. A good way to ensure that the students understand each concept and are
engaging with it is to ask them to supply examples of the topic from their own lives.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Session 1 – What is Peace?

Exercise 1 – Self-Reflection

Explain that this is an individual exercise that each person will do on their own. They will have five minutes to think
through the question and come up with their understanding.

Give them the below phrase and ask them to think about how they would finish it:

“For me, peace is__________________________________________________________________________________.”

Give time for debrief and allow everyone to share their statements.
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Exercise 2 – Draw Your Peace

Give each student a piece of paper and a pen/marker/coloring pencil (whatever is readily available). Ask each student to
individually draw on their piece of paper what symbolizes peace to them. The only rule for this activity is that they cannot
write words to describe, it has to be in the form of a drawing or a symbol.

When everyone is done with their drawings, ask each person to share with the group what they have drawn and explain
why they drew that specific image or symbol to represent peace.

Questions from the activity:

 What do you notice from the drawings?

 Are they similar or are they different?

Main takeaway: Peace can mean different things to different people, and no one image or symbol is right or wrong.

Discussion:

Peace is when people are able to resolve their conflicts without violence and can work together to improve the quality of their lives
(International Alert definition).
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Peace can mean so many different things but in order to understand peace we need to understand emotions, conflict, violence, communication
and many other important concepts that we will discuss throughout the different sessions we have together.

Session 2 – Understanding Emotion

Our emotions or feelings can make up a big part of how we react or respond to any situation we face in our day. If we are happy, we might
respond in a more positive way than when we find an obstacle or a challenge in our day. Hence, the first step is to understand the different
emotions we feel and what we are facing internally. As we discussed in our previous session peace is the ability to resolve conflict without
violence – but there are many kinds of peace. Peace on the global level, peace at community level and also inner peace at the individual level.

Exercise – Human Sculpture

Break into groups of 4 people each. Each group will get the same emotion and the task is to spend 15 minutes to work
together to create a human sculpture which for your group best represents this emotion.

Then we will come back to the group and each group will present their sculpture. As the group presents their sculpture as
the audience what they see when they look at the sculpture? Then ask the group that is presenting why they chose this
specific sculpture?

When all four groups are done presenting, lead a debrief of the session. Ask the following questions:

- How did you find the exercise?

- What was challenging about it for you?
- Was there any agreement or disagreement on how the emotion should be represented?

Main takeaways of exercise:

- Every person can manifest the same emotion in a different way

- We all have similarities and differences in the way we view and feel things
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Discussion:

How do we understand our feelings?

Every day, or even every hour, we are experiencing a wide range of feelings. One minute we can be sad, then we see something that makes us
happy then we find a situation that makes us feel frustrated. Each one of us is different, some people are very good at understanding what they
are feeling and some people struggle to recognize this continuous shift of emotions. In order to understand ourselves better and to find positive
solutions to situations we need to examine how we are feeling and why we feel the way we feel in some situations.

Questions for the group:

What makes you angry? What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What makes you scared?

Discussion on ANGER:

Anger is an important emotion to understand, because sometimes when we are angry we can act in an aggressive or violent way. Anger is
normal, and we feel it when we are disappointed or let down by one or more people in our close circle, our community or our society. What is
important is how we choose to act or react when we are angry.

Exercise – Small Group Discussions on Anger

Get together in your small group and think of past examples of when you have been very angry. Describe to the group
how you dealt with your anger in that situation.

Discussion debrief?

- What were the different types of ways that people have dealt with their anger in the past?
- Were there any differences or similarities between the stories?

Main takeaways of exercise:

 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

So, what are some ways that people handle their anger?

Retreating or walking away  when someone is extremely angry instead of confronting they choose to remove themselves completely from that
situation

Aggression  a common way to deal with anger is to become aggressive or hostile towards the person you are angry with either through
physical or verbal violence

Suppression  another common way to deal with anger is to bottle it up inside and we will discuss this further in the next session as it relates to
inner conflict

Discussion:

Do you think any of these above methods are good ways to deal with anger?

Are there other ways to deal with anger that may not be listed here?

Session 3 – Understanding Conflict

 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Debrief from last session – ask the group what they remember from the previous session?

Exercise – What is Conflict roleplay

Divide the group into groups of three and ask them to work together to come up with a roleplay showing a situation that
they would define as a conflict*. Each group will have 20 minutes to prepare their role play, then will present it to the
rest of the group.

Debrief:

What did the group notice that was similar in each of the roleplays?

*facilitator’s note – important to think through what some alternative terms are for ‘conflict’ that might be more
commonly used or understood within the community, such as disagreement, misunderstanding, dispute. Also to note, the
roleplays are likely to show conflicts that have some element of aggression or violence, and as a facilitator the idea is to
guide the debrief discussion to frame the next discussion around differences between conflict and violence

Question to the group:

Do you think there a difference between conflict and violence?

Allow time for participants to reflect on this question and provide their opinions

It’s important to remember that:

- Before a conflict grows to involving other people or other parties, it starts within each individual
- This means that you as an individual have the ability to prevent or stop a conflict from happening

But what is a conflict?

 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

- A conflict is when two people or two sides cannot agree on something. It is a clash between different ideas, different beliefs, different
needs or interests. This disagreement can be between two individuals, two communities or even two countries but the root of it remains
the same – it is a disagreement. There can also be inner conflict that occurs within one individual which we will discuss below.
- A conflict can be violent but it can also be non-violent

CONFLICT ≠ VIOLENCE
It is important to remember that conflict and violence are not the same thing. Violence is one type of response to conflict. Conflict is a normal
part of daily life as we all think differently and have different opinions on what we want. Violence is when you choose to use some sort of force
to handle a conflict. For example, if your friend disagrees with you about what you have said, and you decide to push him to the ground because
you are unhappy with his criticism. This is an example of using force. It’s important to note that not all violence is necessarily physical in nature.

Inner conflict vs Outer conflict

What is inner conflict?

Purpose of below diagrams: For participants to realize that we all build up tension inside. This creates inner conflict that can lead to outer
conflicts with other people if we don’t do something about it.

1. Explain:

Inner conflicts exist inside all of us and may never be shown to anybody. They arise when a person has
to make a choice between two situations in his/her life, when the situations seems to be impossible

2. Ask the participants the questions below and discuss:

 Can you give examples of inner conflicts from your own lives?
 How do these inner conflicts make you feel?
 How can inner conflicts lead to outer conflicts, meaning conflict between people?
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3. The Bottle

Show the poster on the right?

Ask participants:

 What do you see?

 What do you think this diagram represents?

Explain:

 The human capacity to contain emotions is limited. Think about the capacity as a container,
such as a bottle we all have inside us.

4. Different People, Different Bottles

Ask participants:

 What do you see in these two images?

 What do you think these two different people represent?*

*facilitator’s note – this discussion is to highlight the difference in capacities of people in

managing tensions and repressed emotions. Some people may have larger containers that can
hold a lot of inner conflict before becoming visible externally and others may have smaller
bottles
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

5. Show a red piece of cardboard slowly filling up the empty bottle in the poster shown above:

Ask participants:

 What do you see?

 What do you think this diagram represents?

Explain:

 Whenever emotions are repressed and not let out, they are stored in the container of emotions

6. Show poster on the right

Ask participants:

 What do you see?

 What do you think this diagram represents?
 Have you ever experienced a similar experience of exploding?

Explain:

 When your container is full, it will only take on drop, such as a small offence, and the pressure
in the container of emotions will be too much and cause the bottle to explode.
 We don’t all have the same size bottle inside, which means that one person can explode very
easily and someone else can keep their emotions inside much longer but their explosion might
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Session 4 – Managing Conflict

 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

It isn’t always about right or wrong.

It is just about having a different view of things.

How to manage conflict:

Managing conflict is understanding that everyone has a different perspective and that we should listen to each other’s points of view rather than
try to dominate the conversation with only our own understanding.

Exercise – Colored Lenses

A tool to remind us that we see the world differently

EXERCISE: Glasses
1. Pick two volunteers and have them come up in front of the crowd.
2. Put one pair of sunglasses on each of them so they have a different pair of sunglasses with a different colour of
lenses.
3. Ask each of the volunteers how they see the world.
4. Tell them to switch glasses and ask them what they see now and if it is different.
Explain:
 We can say that all the different things that influence the way we see the world, what we focus on, and how that
affects our actions is like having our own personal set of glasses. The lenses in the glasses affect the way we see
the world.
 You each have your own unique set of glasses and no one else knows exactly how you see the world.
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Exercise – What Do You See?

Preparation for exercise – print copies of below image and distribute

Ask participants to spend a few minutes analyzing the picture by themselves and think of what they see on this piece of
paper. Then initiate a group discussion of what they see in this picture? (in most cases some participants will say they see
an older lady, some will say they see a younger lady and a few people might say both)

Why do you think we are doing this exercise?

Main takeaways: Discussion

What we want to take away from this exercise is that many people can look at the exact same thing and see something When we see
different. It is the same picture that everyone received but some people saw one thing, some people saw another that someone
thing. Does that mean that anyone was wrong in what they saw? has a different
perspective than
us, we naturally
try to convince
them that what we see is right and what they are seeing is wrong. When we do that we immediately start escalating a conflict. In order to
prevent or resolve conflict we need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. If you see an old lady and the person in front of you sees a
young lady instead of saying “no you are wrong, there is only an old lady in this picture” you can say “I see an old lady, and I cannot see a young
lady. Can you help show me where you see the young lady?” A very big part of managing conflict is having good communication. In our next
session we will look in detail at communication skills.

Exercise – Perspectives

Objective – for participants to understand that we see things differently depending on who we are and what we have
experienced in life

Instructions:

1. Tell participants to stand in one big square facing outwards

2. Ask them to obverse what they see in front of them
3. Now shift everyone in the square by 90 degrees so that everyone is standing in a new spot in this square
4. Ask them again to observe what is in front of them

Prompts to ask after the exercise:

 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Discussion:

We have now done different exercises showing the importance of perspectives and highlighting that depending on where you are standing you
can see a situation differently. This concept applies to understanding and managing conflicts as well. When you find yourself in a conflict
situation, your perspective is shaping up how you see that situation and how you respond. But your perspective is not the only perspective in the
story, and in order to manage a conflict you need to understand the other person(s) perspectives as well.

Exercise – Conflict 1, 2, 3 - Roleplay

Break the participants into three groups and give them the same conflict scenario but ask them to act out a different
ending for each one.

Conflict scenario: You return home from school and your mother is very angry because you again forgot to help your
auntie with going to the market to pick up some things for her. Your mother is shouting at you that she is tired of you
always choosing to spend time with your friends and not helping with household chores. She tells you that you need to
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Session 5 – Communication

** the below game requires physical contact of the hands/arms. It is important to consider whether the game is appropriate depending on
pandemic restrictions and also to consider the gender sensitivities depending on the group. If need be pair two females together, or two males
together.
Exercise – Elbow-Hand Game

Ask for two volunteers to come up to the front of the room and have them sit in front of each other with a table between
them.

Instructions to the volunteers:

- Tell the volunteers you want them to each put their right elbow on the table and grab each other’s right hands.
- Tell them that they will get a point for each time the back of the other person’s hand touches the table.
- Tell them they have 30 seconds to get as many points as possible
- **facilitator’s note - what usually happens is that the volunteers consider this as an arm-wrestling game and end
of struggling to not let the other person push their hand down. This will mean in 30 seconds they might only get 1
or 2 points.

Once the 30 seconds are over ask the volunteers:

- To repeat what the instructions to the game were

- Did the instructions ever say for you to fight, wrestle or struggle with each other?
- Was there another way to get more points apart from fighting/struggling?

As a facilitator explain to them that you never told them how they needed to bring the other person’s hand to the table.
You just said they needed to touch the table as many times as possible in 30 seconds. They automatically assumed that in
order for them to get a point, the other person had to lose. Instead if they had chosen to just communicate with each
other they could have gotten many more points but just allowing each other’s hands to touch the table back and forth.
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Discussion:

What is communication?

It is a tool we use to receive and give information to others.

Let’s think through some of the different ways or tools through which we communicate using the below exercises showing verbal versus non-
verbal communication:

Exercise – Telephone Game

Depending on the number of participants have everyone stand in either one or two lines (each line should be about 10
people)

Whisper a statement into the ear of the first person and tell them to pass it on to the next person in the same whispered
tone. Everyone else should remain quiet until it’s their turn to hear the phrase. Ask the last person to say the phrase out
loud and then unveil what the original phrase was. Most often the message by the time it has reached the last person is
completely different than what the first person heard.
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Exercise – Non-verbal communication

Ask four volunteers to step up and take them to one side of the room where the other participants cannot hear what you
are saying. Give each one of them an emotion and tell them that each one will have to silently act out the emotion to the
group in whichever way they want. The only rule is that they cannot use any words.

Each participant will be assigned a different emotion - the emotions will be happy, angry, sad and scared.

When the volunteers are ready bring them one by one to the center of the room in front of the group and ask them to
act out the emotion assigned to them. Tell the audience that they will have to guess what each actor is trying to
communicate.

Debrief: What do you think these two exercises showed?

Allow time for the group to give their observations on why the two exercises were played and what they think it shows about communication.
Guide the discussion towards these below main takeaways:

 Verbal communication is not the only effective tool for communication. In exercise two where no words were being used, the audience
was able to guess what the emotions were. However, in exercise one where we were allowed to use our words see how the message
changed from beginning to end? Often times non-verbal communication is a much more effective tool for communication.
 We always have to be very careful what we are communicating to the next person and how that message is being received because
sometimes when the message is being passed on incorrectly it can escalate conflict.
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Discussion: Listening is Key

Communication is not just about how you express something to another person, it is also how you receive information from someone else. How
you listen, is equally as important as how you talk. It is important when you are listening, that you are actively listening. Active listening is a type
of communicating whereby you as the listener shows you are listening and processing the information being given to you by re-emphasizing or
re-stating what the speaker has told you to show your engagement.

Exercise – Active Listening or Not?

Split the group into two halves. Ask one half of the group to leave the room and wait outside of further instructions on
the activity. Tell the group that remains inside that they should think of a subject they are highly interested in which they
will share with someone. It can be about any topics – football, music or anything else.

Go to the group outside and tell them they will go back inside and be paired with someone. That person will be sharing
with them something they are passionate about. For the first minute or so they should be actively listening to their
partner and really showing interest. Then after one minute they should completely stop listening (they can do this by
looking away from their partner, stop showing interest, yawning etc.).

Bring the listeners group back inside and pair each one of them with someone from the speaker’s group. Start the
exercise.

Debrief:

 How did the speakers feel throughout the exercise?

 What is important when listening to someone else speak?
 How does it feel when you are being listened to (not listened to)?
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Discussion: Non-combative communication styles

When you are speaking to someone else it’s important to express how you feel without making the other person feel like you are placing blame
on them or that you are suggesting your point of view is fact.

Analyze this statement:

 “You are wrong and what you are saying is a lie.”

How would you feel if someone said this above statement to you? Is there a better way to say this?

For example, could you say:

 “I feel that there could have been a miscommunication and I have a different perspective on this situation that I would like to share with
you.”

In the above statement you are still showing that you don’t fully agree with the other person but you are communicating it in a way that shows
you are willing to have a constructive dialogue around it.

An “I” statement:

The “I” statements are an important part of communication – it allows you to share your opinion from your perspective without blaming the
person in front of you and avoiding the accusations of ‘you….’.

How is an “I” statement formulated?

 I feel/felt ____________ when __________ happened because___________ .

Exercise – “I” statements

Break participants into pairs and provide them with the below scenario and ask them to practice “I” statements we
discussed above. One of them will be the angry sibling, and the other will be the one who is always out their friends. Ask
the angry sibling to try and use the “I” statement to explain how you feel without placing blame on the other person.

You are having a conversation with your sibling and they are angry with you as they feel you haven’t not been around
much to help them with family responsibilities. They tell you that all you care about is spending time with your friends and
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Main takeaway from today’s session:

Communication is very important for managing conflict and coexisting peacefully.

Debrief at end of day:

What did they learn? Like? How do they feel?

DEBRIEF ON TRAINING:

This discussion is intended to be held after conclusion of all the modules. The aim of the discussion is to receive
feedback on how the participants feel about the training process and the mode of delivery. It is also intended to be a
discussion that gages their understanding of the content and what are the main takeaways for them. Facilitators
should allow room for participants to explain how they feel. In addition to this discussion it would be important to
allow for another avenue by which participants who aren’t comfortable talking in front of others can give their
feedback i.e. a feedback mechanism such as an exercise where everyone closes their eyes and uses a show of hands to
answer questions, a suggestion box (dependent on literacy rates) or other appropriate mechanisms
 Peacebuilding/peaceful coexistence modules for school clubs

Annex 1 – List of Energizers

1. Name Compass (~3 minutes per round)—Everyone stands in a circle with the trainer in the center. The trainer spins in a circle and points both
his/her hands at one person, that person ducks down and the two people on either side must say the other person’s name quickly. The first
person to say the correct name stays and the one who does not leave the circle until there are just two left.
2. In the River, In the Grass (~2 minutes per round)—participants line up facing the trainer. In front of them is the “River,” and behind them is
the “Grass.” When the trainer says, “In the river,” participants must jump (not step, JUMP!) over the line, and when s/he says, “In the grass,”
back over the line. However, if you are already in the river and the trainer says, “In the river,” you don’t jump. Anyone who makes a mistake
is out. As the game goes on, the trainer calls the prompts faster.
3. Trick the Thief (~15 minutes per game, about 4-5 minutes per round plus prep time)—The trainer tells this story: A thief has broken into your
tukul and stolen your keys. You have found the place where the thief is sleeping and you must get your keys back from him/her without waking
him/her up! The group is split into two teams that are placed along the wall. The thief is blindfolded and placed in the center of the circle on a
chair with the keys under the chair. S/he cannot move other than pointing with one hand and moving his/her head back and forth to listen.
Each team has 3-5 minutes to plan their strategy after which when the game begins there is NO TALKING--it is completely silent. The teams
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begin to sneak toward the thief to steal the keys while the thief points when s/he hears someone. If the thief points directly at the person, that
person must go back to the wall and start again, however other members of their team can continue on. The game ends when one team steals
the keys back from the thief.
4. Stand in a circle holding hands facing inwards, without breaking the circle and still holding hands, try to get everyone in the circle facing
outwards in the room (if appropriate culturally & not breaking covid restrictions)
5. Rabbit, Hunter, Wall (bag, scissors, paper-game) – two teams facing each other must agree on within the team if they are rabbit, wall or
hunter. Facilitator counts one, two, three and the teams show what they are (one team wins according to: hunter shoots rabbit; rabbit jumps
over wall; hunter cannot shoot through wall – or even if the teams chose the same)