Young Children, Parents and Teachers Perspectives

on Peacebuilding in Bangladesh

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A Field Survey by

Institute of Child and Human Development, Dhaka

Mahmuda Akhter

Executive Director, ICHD

5th December,2014

Background

To strengthen the regional knowledge base on ECD and Peacebuilding

To generate important knowledge and understanding on peace building to shape future projects and programs on ECD and Peacebuilding.

To involve children’s voices and participation in documentation and research

To evaluate evidence-based practice to offer greater leverage for the future scalability and sustainability of ECD programmes

Methods and Procedure

This study focuses the essence of experience. It is based on face to face interviews with children, parents and teachers.

A purposive sampling method was applied to select the participants. In total 2 children 2 teachers and 2 parents were interviewed.

The questionnaire were translated into Bengali and face validity were done to ensure reliability of the measure.

Study Population

2 children, 2 parent and 2 teachers were selected from different socio economic and religious background. Study area were in Baunia and Mirpur, Dhaka.

From socio economic status both lower and middle income group were selected. Male and female ratio were maintained.

Pictures

Chaiity 8 yrs

Dipaly Raani Das 19 yrs

Raihan

Children’s Perspective of Peace within and around

“When grandma cooks everyday I feel we all are well.” (Raihan, 5 years)

“When my aunt does not fight with my mother and stops using bad words that is peace to me.”

(Chaity, 8 years)

Raihan lost his mother at the age of 2 and can tell how the mother actually died. He said,

“ My father chased my mother with a knife, mother run and run and on the road a car went on her so she died.”

The father is mentally imbalanced and is unable to earn on regular basis. The family is run by the income of grandfather . Surprisingly Raihan loves his father most and he also draw his father’s picture when asked to draw a picture of things he likes most.

Whereas Chaity is staying with her parents and very recently dislocated from the joint family specially from grandparents due to family disputes.

Children’s Perspective of not being in Peace

“Rahim throws stones at me and he has his bat and ball I don’t have color, bat or any ball”

(Raihan, age 5yrs)

“I hide myself when people around me use bad words and fights.”

(Chaity, 8 yrs)

“ My new school classmates don’t want me to play with them.”

(Chaity, 8 yrs)

Feelings of not being in peace is caused by comparisons of possessions, nature of neighbours and ability of making friends in school and neighbourhood.

Children’s Efforts to Build Peace

Building peace or settling an issue without being rude does not work.

Family members can help each other to solve issues with outsiders.

Raihan says he does not want to make peace, if someone hits him with a stone he also throws stones to them. Whereas the other child shared that she prefers to stay closer to her family rather than settling the issue but once she did it for her younger sister. She went to the school and talked with other girls who did not want to talk to her sister.

Parents Perspective of Peace

“Not fighting with anyone is peace.”

(Dipaly Rani Das, 19 yrs)

“ if every person beliefs in the good advice of their own religion and practice it in their own life, that state of mind is peace”

(Umme Salma,35 yrs)

In both the interviews it was stated that peace comes from the action of others. Like for Dipaly Rani Das her day labourer husband can earn everyday then others in the family has peace. If they don’t have fear from others they are in peace.

Peacebuiding with Children

Discipline practices from early years can teach children to maintain peace.

Education can help to maintain peace.

Time to time hitting softly or scaring them with a stick can restrain them from fighting.

“Once I took the toy of other child as my child was crying and in exchange gave the other child one of my child’s toy to play. Later I bought the toy for my child.”

(Dipaly Rani Das

Sharing and being content with little things was not an option.

Promoting Non-violence among Children (Parent’s observation)

“Now a days we don’t see any non violent approach in children”

(Dipaly Rani Das, 19 yrs )

“No, they always go for the violent way. Either fights or protests good advice.”

(Umme Salma, 35yrs)

Umme Salma thinks that if they cannot afford good living for a child they cannot blame the child to be content with what ever the child has. Whereas Dipaly thinks her child should be happy for what she has. If we compare the economic status Dipaly is in much worse situation than Umme Salma but she is more content with her life compare to Umme Salma. This can be due to the extent of exposure both of them have in life.

Teachers Perspective of Peace

Physical fitness and being good human is peace.

Peace means good conduct.

Friendship is peace.

A.N. M Kamal Kader

50 yrs

Mahbubur Rahman Senior Teacher, M coaching, 45 yrs

Peaceful atmosphere and learning to control our own behaviour is must to create peace among children.

"As a teacher we can teach children how to solve conflicts with dialogue.“

Teachers Efforts for Peacebuiding

Teachers can act as a guide and can involve personally to in solve conflicts between students.

Most of the teachers do try to teach children about peace and friendship.

Teachers can extend their help in issues that effects both family and society of an individual child.

Sometimes non violent approaches are seen in school among students but most of the cases it is absent. But tiffin period and games time are the perfect time where children are seen to solve issues on their own through discussions.

Both the teacher agreed to the point that better example of conflict resolution can help student to solve problems in peaceful manner. They mentioned that extent of exposure is critical, if the gap between what we have and what we want to have is bigger then that makes everyone unhappy.

Peacebuilding at School

Curriculums do not have any such peace building subjects but religion and social studies somehow covers similar notions.

We do need to have specific subjects that can teach students the importance of peace.

Though religious beliefs can be an area but it also should not be a religious issue rather it should be a general topic which targets to humanity.

Conclusions

As "peace" is mostly dependent on action of others, we need to have peaceful environment, understanding among people and stability of family income for meeting basic needs.

Children are capable of solving issues but they need to experience non violent examples from family members and in the neighbourhood.

Parents need to know different approaches to set examples in front of their children like promoting sharing, equality and above all respects for each other.

Teachers can play a vital role to teach peace building approaches through classroom activities.

School curriculum can have separate chapters and this subject can include best practices of other countries of the world.

 

 

Pictures

Raihan drew his father buying ice cream for him. He said he always feels good if his father earns money and brings him ice cream.

Pictures

Raihan drew this tree from his front yard when asked to draw something that he does not like. he said he does not like sajna, a vegetable that grows in it.

Picture Chaity drew this when

asked to draw something she does not like. She said she does not like people who fights. She first tried to draw her aunt who fights a lot but later crossed it as she really don't want to draw her.

She draw the carrots and apple as she can draw them very nicely.

Pictures

Raihan (5 yrs) and his father, he drew this picture when asked to draw something that he feels good about.

Thank You