Qatar Charity (QC) has held a special event to discuss the role of education in promoting social harmony in post-conflict areas.
The session was held alongside a United Nations (UN) event and attended by a number of important figures and representatives of international organisations, including Rashid Khalikov, assistant secretary-general of the UN for Humanitarian Partnerships with the Middle East and Central Asia. It also saw the participation and support of the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the UN, which provided all necessary facilities and technical and logistical support for the event.
Mohamed bin Ali al-Ghamdi, executive director for international development at QC, said the event met with considerable praise, pointing to the importance of QC’s “desire to highlight the role of education in promoting social harmony in post-conflict areas such as Somalia, Sri Lanka and Bosnia”.
Khalikov congratulated QC on its efforts and thanked the Permanent Mission of Qatar for its contribution. He said education during emergencies is a human subject, stressing that the provision of education decreases the risk of violence and conflict. He added that the importance of education should not stop at children and young people but should reach parents equally for the “life continuation feeling” it provides.
The session was initiated by al-Ghamdi, who welcomed the attendees before playing an introductory video about QC, followed by the submission of papers by experts from international organisations and institutions and academics from four universities.
The first axis provided a general background on the event theme of “The role of education in promoting social harmony”, the second was titled “What is expected from education in terms of the re-modelling of social harmony in the post-conflict areas?”, the third included case studies from Somalia, Sri Lanka and the fourth and last discussion covered education and its impact on conflicts as well as society.
“The role of education in promoting social harmony covers a range of issues, namely the reality of conflicts across the world and their effects, conflict resolution and peace-sustainability efforts, conflict and issues connected to social cohesion, education and the promotion of social harmony and the challenges facing the harnessing of education in promoting social harmony,” al-Ghamdi said, concluding that the first axis posed a range of questions, answered by the following axes.
Dr Mohamed Sharqawi, professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University (bosnia); Abdul Rahman Sharif, head of non-governmental organisations in Somalia (Somalia); and Stephanie Licht, head of evaluation and follow-up in the German agency GIZ, presented on cases in Bosnia, Somalia and Sri Lanka, respectively, in the
second and third axes.
The fourth axis was introduced by Dr Alan Codman, president of the International Institute of Education in New York.