Lisbon, Portugal—UPF organized three working meetings of Ambassadors for Peace in order to implement the UPF character education program.
Ambassadors for Peace are a most valuable working force for UPF. To better use their potential, know-how and motivation, UPF invited a group of Ambassadors for Peace with experience in the field of education to an introductory meeting on November 16, 2019, the International Day for Tolerance.
The purpose of the meeting was to create a working group—open to teachers, trainers, researchers, and others—to implement the UPF character education program in Portugal, starting in the Lisbon area.
The video about the Africa Summit that UPF held in São Tomé and Príncipe in September 2019 was very useful in that it showed a real example of the character education project.
Then a PowerPoint presentation about activities in various parts of the world of Youth and Students for Peace (YSP), an organization that is affiliated with UPF, was shown to illustrate the ability to adapt to national and local realities.
It was a successful brainstorming working meeting, involving the leaders of UPF and Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), another affiliated organization, together with researchers, trainers, teachers, jurists, a psychologist, and a social educator, some of whom are our institutional partners.
The project received praise, and all those present welcomed the invitation to work together, so we ended up doing another introductory meeting on November 23 for those who could not attend the first one.
During the third meeting, on November 30, Ambassadors for Peace were introduced to the character education manual and some introductory contents from the Four Family Loves materials of YSP to understand the value of these concepts to society.
Concrete goals and strategies were set for involving high-level people as well as key social institutions in order to create a concise character education project. The group then decided to meet twice a month.
The goal is to implement pilot experiments in schools, associations, etc., that can generate willingness on the part of the government and other entities to support the program.
The meetings ended with an atmosphere of good will and a commitment to work together on educating young people to build a world of everlasting peace.