School of Peace

In a seriously threatened world where international conflicts have killed over 25 million people since World War II, there is an urgent need for a new vision for justpeace which brings together people of different nationalities, faiths and ethnicities to work cooperatively for an end to violence. The School of Peace, jointly organized by the Asian Pacific Alliance of YMCAs, Christian Conference of Asia, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst and Visthar is an attempt to build the foundations for such a vision of justpeace through a three-month course based at Visthar, Bangalore.

The course has three modules:

• Self and Society
• Religion,Culture and Spirituality
• Transformation

Students from South and South East Asia are invited to the course. The pedagogical design includes travel and immersion in areas of conflict in India and a learning from the experiences of activists and civil society organizations (at the grass roots levels) responding to the different forms of violence. Besides field work participants also meet with resource persons from different parts of Asia. The course will take students on a challenging journey within themselves as well as through the lives of their communities. Participants will evolve strategies to build an interfaith and interethnic movement which can mobilize our different faiths to work for an end to violent conflicts.