About the Project

In October 2018, the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG), the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson (PDDH) and the Ministry of Education (MINED) of El Salvador concluded the development of the educational material: Citizenship, Memory and Culture of Peace. Toolbox for teachers and educators in El Salvador.

The result of a consultation process that began in 2016, with the participation of more than 30 public officials, representatives of the educational community and civil society groups in El Salvador, the objective of the material is to provide teachers and managers of educational centers in El Salvador, as well as civil society organizations, with a series of practical tools to work on a curriculum of democratic citizenship, memory and culture of peace with adolescents.

Originally composed of two volumes, a third volume was elaborated in 2023 in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Thus, the final version of the material consists of three books:

• The first volume, on Citizenship and Society, aims to contribute to the creation of inclusive spaces for dialogue in schools, based on plurality and respect for others on a daily basis, as a way to prevent violence based on prejudice, intolerance or discrimination and to strengthen democratic culture.

• The second volume, on Memory and Citizenship, seeks to strengthen the capacity of educators to work on democratic citizenship based on a sensitive, critical and pluralistic view of El Salvador's recent past.

• The third volume, on Culture of Peace and Coexistence, is made up of a set of tools that, using a participatory methodology, seek to offer schools resources to prepare a diagnosis of the school and develop strategies to promote coexistence among all members of the educational community.

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Although the three volumes are independent, and therefore can be worked on separately, in this proposal, their objectives are interrelated. Thus, from an educational perspective, on the one hand, education in democratic citizenship can be understood as a strategy to strengthen the culture of peace in the school; on the other hand, to educate in citizenship, it is necessary to have a strong school that is committed to harmonious coexistence among its members. In this exercise, moreover, memory is articulated as a pedagogical category that aims to build bridges between the past and the present, helping students better understand the social and political complexity they live in when imagining their future.

In addition, to help working with the material quickly and effectively, the Auschwitz Institute has created a folder in which all the videos, texts and readings included in the material can be found here, organized by themes and didactic tools.

Training

To help educators work with this material in various educational spaces, since 2019, the Auschwitz Institute has been carrying out a series of training efforts to train different actors on the themes and methodology of the proposal.

Thus, in 2019, in collaboration with MINED and the PDDH, the Auschwitz Institute trained an initial group of 60 multipliers, including both teachers and officials of the School of Human Rights and representatives of the 14 departmental delegations of the PDDH in the country. Following these workshops, the Auschwitz Institute, PDDH and MINED worked on the creation of an 8-week virtual course that was offered by INFOD during the fall of 2019 and completed by 51 teachers. Since then, the Auschwitz Institute and its partners have trained a total of 225 educators and teachers.

Continuing this work, and in close collaboration with the PDDH and various civil society organizations, the Auschwitz Institute updated the contents of the virtual training course in 2023 to also include the contents of the new volume of the box. Integrated into the educational proposal of the School of Human Rights of the PDDH since 2020, the course is also available in Moodle format, in a self-instructional version and free of charge for all those educators who want to learn more about the proposal.

Credits

In collaboration with:
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The Auschwitz Institute would like to thank the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen for its permission to reproduce several images as classroom resources.