GCRF Development Award: Education, Justice and Memory Network

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The proposed Education, Justice and Memory Network (EdJAM) comes together in order to contribute towards Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. A crucial part of SDG4 is its target 4.7, which specifies the kinds of skills, knowledge and attitudes that education should develop in all learners and includes knowledge and skills to promote a culture of peace and non-violence.Current approaches to teaching about conflict and peace often fall short of meeting this challenge. Peace education often relies on generalised and universal approaches that fall flat for learners since they do not enable connections to past and present injustice or violence that affect daily lives. Formal history education is often a space where violence is perpetuated, for instance when it promotes exclusive group identities; silences cultures and experiences; or legitimises conflict and injustice. Curricula often limit opportunity for students to develop knowledge and understanding of the specific historical, cultural, political and economic roots of the conflicts and violence that affect them, much less the skills to transform these conflicts. Where spaces do exist, teachers often lack training, resources and skills to support dialogue and difficult conversations. Existing research tends to concentrate on textbooks and curricula, meaning there is limited evidence of effective teaching and learning processes in schools and other spaces where learners apprehend the past.However, alternatives exist. Creative and innovative practices, pioneered by teachers, artists, community educators, museum curators, and young people themselves offer engaging ways to connect learning about difficult pasts with skills and commitment to realising better futures. EdJAM works to amplify, connect and share these approaches, drawing on the disciplines and practices of transitional justice, memory studies, history, heritage studies and feminism and working with leading civil society partners in Cambodia, Colombia, Pakistan and Uganda who are doing this pioneering work. This focus enables EdJAM to connect to other SDG challenges, particularly SDG 16 (just, peaceful and inclusive societies) and SDG 17 (global partnerships) and to ensure that learners in our focus countries have a chance to develop the skills and knowledge to build a culture of peace.Our rationale for applying for a Development Award is to support the preparation of the strongest possible Stage 2 proposal for EdJAM. The Development Award : 1) responds to feedback from the Stage 1 application; 2) supports the development of sustainable and equitable partnerships and piloting innovative approaches in Pakistan, where our existing relationships are less developed than in Cambodia, Colombia and Uganda; and 3) enables opportunities for learning and the development processes for safeguarding and risk mitigation and management within EdJAM.