The Félix Houphouët-Boigny Foundation for Peace Research organized a training seminar for members of the Students 'Delegates' School Board (CSDE), clubs and associations of the Mixed 1 and Mixte 2 Schools of Yamoussoukro On "Education for a Culture of Peace, Non-Violence and the Rights of the Child", held on May 26, 2016 in Yamoussoukro. Two speeches marked the opening ceremony.
In his speech, Mr Brahima Traoré, on behalf of the Principal of the Mixed Lycee 1, thanked the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Foundation for Peace Research for the opportunity it offers their students to learn and train The values of the culture of peace and democracy. Dr. Dieneba Doumbia, Director of the Department of Peace Research, welcomed the many students from the two secondary schools in Yamoussoukro. She explained the context and the merits of this seminar. For her, the school plays an important role in the training of student citizen.
Dr. Doumbia's presentation on education for the values of the culture of peace aroused great interest among the students who participated in all the debates. Turning to the themes of citizenship and citizenship, she said that the curriculum for citizenship education is now engaged, that it is the business of all and is at the crossroads of all expectations. For her, citizen engagement is a theme of vital importance for the future of our societies. Any citizen involvement in school life constitutes the breeding ground for citizens' awareness and responds to an ethic of participation. It is therefore important to develop the approach to associative life. This is why the foundation has chosen to train members of the School Board of Student Delegates (ESDCs), clubs and associations.
During this seminar, there were two workshops:
- The first one on the theme: "The opportunity of democracy in school", which opposed two groups in the form of a debate contradictory. The aim of this exercise, far from wanting to take up the arguments against democracy at school, is rather to enable them to discover the necessity of democracy at school, but also and above all the stakes of this debate which must be learned. The seminarians appreciated this workshop which enabled them, through the screening of the film "The great debaters" by Denzel Washington, to discover the methodology and the relevance of the contradictory debate.
- The second workshop was devoted to the production of pupils. The latter have produced texts in the form of songs or poems, and have also devised staging to illustrate the themes addressed at the seminar.