Methodology of a traveling peacekeeping camp for teenagers whose lives were affected by hostilities in eastern Ukraine

Abstract

The article reveals the methodology of organizing a traveling peace camp for teenagers, basing on the experience gained by the New Donbas NGO team in summer 2017. Following the problem formulation, it presents the principles of the project, tasks, and methods of their implementation. The authors elaborate on the concept of peacebuilding efforts. They understand the latter as the means of empowering people (especially the young) who have suffered from the destructive impact of war so that they become subjects of the restoration of peaceful life. Going beyond the regional identity, the article argues, is an important task of peacebuilding practices aimed at overcoming the causes and consequences of warfare in East Ukraine. It explains the role of active traveling as an effective tool for achieving this goal. From here it deduces an idea of historical memory education pertinent to the formation of nonconflict civic identity. The authors propose the forms of this kind of education that provide an opportunity for rethinking the common past - national, European, and global - via modeling social and psychological preconditions and driving forces of conflicts. Those forms include local history quests, reconstruction games in natural and man-made environments, as well as training and practice in photography and documentary shooting. Such forms are engaging, have a humanistic dimension, and diverge from authoritarian, "top-down" approach to learning thanks to variational scenarios and involvement of participants in the joint reflection.