Peace Action Prilep: We are opening a dialogue for remembrance and peacebuilding

The dialogue meetings have a goal to provide and open space for talks and exchange of opinions among the History teachers, about issues of how to present better and in more humane manner, the hard history themes from the period of the second half of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of the Twenty fist Century, for their students.

The first dialogue meeting was implemented on 24^th and 25^th of September 2020, using the video communication program ZOOM.

On the first dialogue meeting, we had a profound discussion about the perceptions of understanding the conflict and the ethnic identity. The conflict with its specifics influences the society and the way people behave. Given this, we have used techniques for constructive exchange of opinions about social circumstances that can lead to conflict.  Accordingly, we have open a discussion about causes and consequences if one is avoiding the conflict, we discussed about the usage of the power in conflict situations, about the people’s interests in the society and about the economy as a factor for resolution of conflicts.

On this meeting we have started to talk about the war in 2001, given the fact that this theme is very limited in presentation in the History school subject. We talked about the perceptions one has about 2001, by answering the following questions: when did the war happen, where the war took place and who were the conflicting sides in the war. The technique we used for this discussion was the World Coffee. This technique left a good impression on the participants.

The ethnic identity topic was addressed by usage of the exercise Aquarium. The participants exchanged their opinions and attitudes about everyday life, that have a connection with the ethnic identity. Some of the statements were: segregation in the schools, mono-ethnic political parties, etc.

We also spoke about the ethnic identity through the angle of perceptions about the question: what needs does the ethnic identity fulfill.

This activity is part of the project” Interpretation of the mutual history of modern time “, in implementation of Peace Action and History Teachers Association of Macedonia, and financially is supported by the Civica Mobilitas Program and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and  Development  – Germany through Peace Action partners- KURWE, Wustrow from Germany.