GNRC's rising star of Tanzania

REPORT ON IAIE & IMPEPO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
INTERCULTRAL EDUCATION: PAIDEIA, POLITY, DEMOI
22TH to 26TH JUNE, 2009
ATHENS, GREECE

Introduction
In May 2000, GNRC in collaboration with UNICEF and UNESCO inaugurated the Council on Global Ethics Education for Children, in 2006 the Interfaith Council on Global Ethics Education for Children introduced the Learning to live together training manual in Tanzania, and they took some inputs from Tanzania’s children to develop the manual.
In June 2009 the IMPEPO, IAIE and University of western Macedonia under the aegis of UNESCO organized conference /training for teachers at university level. It is the third conference to be conducted, with the goal of bringing the teachers and teacher’s trainer to discuss the issues of intercultural education, bilingualism, and religious diversity at childhood level. UNESCO has worked with the Interfaith Council on ethic education for children under GNRC in preparing the learning to live together manual and be used as a learning material both for teachers and children.

Objective
Among the objectives of the conference are:
· Its aims to synthesize issues surrounding intercultural Education
· To promote the exchange of the information, knowledge, and material about all relevant issues concerning education in multicultural societies amongst teachers, teacher’s trainers, and professionals working in curriculum development, research, and education policy.
· To examine the implication of the society context of education and relationship between society, nation state and the international contexts, the situation of individuals, group and minorities within them.

Contents
The conference had variety of presentation from different organizations. On the side of the GNRC Africa the representative had a presentation on symposium with the UNESCO on learning to live together towards cultural appropriate and responsive quality education for all. I (Clara) was invited to facilitate the presentation on the learning to live together toolkit.

Participants
§ The key participants of the conference were three hundred (300) from different countries such as USA, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Tanzania, India, Arab States, Korea, Peru, Brazil, Switzerland etc.;
§ Various organizations and institution; and
§ GNRC Global had the symposium with the UNESCO.

Achievements
The achievements from the conference are,
§ To share with other countries about the benefits gained to young people through learning to live together manual.
§ Learning from various individuals through their presentation and discussions
§ Getting to know each other and their activities.
§ Garner experience in teaching and on presenting the Learning to live together tool kit.

Challenges
The only challenge we faced was the language, the conference was supposed to be conducted in English, French, Spanish and Greek but the conference was mostly dominated by English and Greek so it was difficult to enter in Greek sessions while one is from a English speaking country.

Way forward
Through practice from GNRC Africa (Tanzania) of the learning to live together manual, UNESCO has suggest that we can work with local UNESCO so as to implement the manual national wide. We would like to take the initiative to work with GNRC Staff to make / provide the training of learning to live together to the peace club leaders and members in Tanzania.

Conclusion & Comments
The Conference was very good and successful. It’s good for GNRC Africa to keep on using the toolkit and be implemented as a role model tool. Also training should be provided to teachers so the toolkit can be used in primary or secondary schools as a curriculum.


Prepared by:
Clara Joseph Mduma
Tazara Peace club member

E-mail: jayeki@yahoo.com