Tehran Peace Museum continuing cooperation with the Berghof Foundation, held two TOT workshops with the presence of representatives from the Berghof Foundation during 21st to 23rd of April attended by TPM’s volunteers and a number of NGO activists.

The first workshop, which was about peace education, was held on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd of April in TPM and was for those who attended the introductory workshop during 7th to 11th of November 2016. The introductory workshop included peace and peace education, violence and violence prevention, conflict and conflict transformation and global citizenship. In the TOT workshop, held by facilitators from the Berghof Foundation in April, participants investigated ways and models of conducting peace-related workshops.

During the first day participants exchanged their experiences and impressions of the introductory workshop in November 2016 and talked about the goals and outcomes of the TOT workshop. Another topic discussed on this day was the characteristics of a peace facilitator. Towards the end of the workshop participants were grouped and asked to design a one hour workshop with one of the following subjects: peace, violence, conflict and global citizenship.

The four designed previously rehearsed workshops were then acted out during the second day and in a short session held after each designed workshop, the method, the material and the participants’ impressions and ideas were discussed. One of the main features of these designed workshops was the use of participatory methods such as role plays, group works and acting out scenarios. The TOT workshop was based on the Manual for Peace Trainers (in English and Persian) which was the result of Berghof Foundation cooperation with the Tehran Peace Museum. The participants of this workshop were NGO activists.

The second TOT workshop was held on Sunday 23rd of April and was a part of the Peace Counts project. This workshop was attended by a number of current facilitator of the Peace Counts workshops (volunteers) along with some participants from the neighboring countries. The participants discussed different parts of the Peace Counts workshops, aims, methods and other important points for facilitators. Peace Counts exhibition (part of the Berghof Foundation’s Peace Counts on Tour international project) consists of 25 posters each introducing a person or organization that is active in the field of peace in different countries. TPM has been holding Peace Counts workshops since 2015 with the help of the museum’s trained volunteers
Berghof Foundation representatives in this trip were, Prof. Dr. Giessmann (executive director of Berlin based Berghof Foundation), Mr. Uli Jäger (programme director of Peace Education & Global Learning) and Ms. Isabella Bauer (project assistant) who other than holding the TOT workshops also signed a memorandum of understanding between Allameh Tabataba’i Univeristity, Tehran Peace Museum and Berghof Foundation, attended a meeting in the Institute for Political & International Studies in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence and held a half-day workshop in Shahid Beheshti University.

To see photos, please click here.