A multilevel school-based awareness campaign on reconciliation and social cohesion was conducted in Tellippalai, Jaffna, for 80 parents and teachers in three schools under NPC’s Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) Activity, with support of its partner Social Organizations Networking for Development.

A range of the topics including Non-Violent Communication (NVC) and peace building were discussed using group work and power point presentations.

Special sessions were arranged for the students to disseminate the message of peace building and NVC through short films. Audio-visual means of bringing the message of reconciliation has been highlighted by the US Institute for Peace (USIP), which works closely with the SCORE activity.

As part of the campaign, a peace week was held at the schools where teachers who participated in the NVC awareness campaign delivered the message of peace daily to students.

During peace week, every student wrote a sentence about peace with the help of their teachers, hung it in the classroom and read out their sentences to fellow students.

“The topics we learnt are very important at the school level because any change to be made to our society will have to be practiced at school first. NPC has made this rare type of training available to us. Let’s get together and build a non-violent community starting with schools,” said Mr T. Thayananthan, Principal, Keerimalai Naguleswara Maha Vidyalayam.

“I am going to encourage parents and old students to learn the communication model. When we practice it in our family, it will spread in our community as well,” said Mrs Suganthini Kamaleswaran, Secretary, Old Students Association.