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Principles and practices of peace education
Principles and practices of peace education

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1 Hope

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Figure 1 Climate activists like Vanessa Nakate (left) and Greta Thunberg (right) inspire hope and movements for change

In 2018, at the age of 15, environmental activist Greta Thunberg wrote a column for The Guardian [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , a UK newspaper. Thunberg explained that her frustration at the inaction of adults in Sweden over climate change prompted her to begin a school strike, leaving her classroom to sit outside the Swedish parliament.

In the column, Thunberg made the point that:

If I live to be 100, I will be alive in 2103. Adults often don’t think beyond the year 2050. But by then, I will, in the best case, not have lived half of my life. What we do or don’t do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my friends, our children and their grandchildren.

(Thunberg, The Guardian, 2018)

Thunberg’s comment reminds us that children and young people are concerned with, and directly affected by, issues in the world around them. Supporting them to develop skills and attributes that enable them to take a non-violent stand can help them become national and global citizens with hopes for a positive future.