Our team brings together an interdisciplinary group with extensive experience across Colombia, South Africa, the UK, and Turkey, combining academic and practical expertise in peace, conflict, education, popular education, workers’ education, and critical pedagogy. This diversity enables us to offer comparative insights into the role of education in conflict and peacebuilding, drawing on powerful narratives of struggle and resilience from different global contexts. With contributions from Mario Novelli on global education and conflict, Birgül Kutan on democracy and social movements in Turkey, Berenice Celeita on Colombia’s grassroots peace processes, Professor Salim Vally on post‑apartheid social justice education, and Professor Fatma Gök on popular education and social movements, our collective knowledge creates a rich transnational learning environment that Birgül Kutan will help translate into Diyarbakır’s unique socio‑political landscape.
Grounded in dialogical, community‑centred pedagogies, our approach values the knowledge and agency of local communities, emphasising bottom‑up peacebuilding, collective memory, and transformative education that challenges structural violence. This workshop, which brings together theoretical discussions, participatory dialogues, critical collective reflection, and practical activities, aims to rethink the role of education in building inclusive and just peace, prioritises working with marginalised groups—particularly Kurdish youth and women—and seeks to strengthen connections between local and global peacebuilding actors. By the end of the workshop, participants will have co‑developed a framework for critical pedagogy in peacebuilding tailored to Diyarbakır and the broader Kurdish region; gained new strategies and tools for transformative educational practice; amplified the voices and leadership of marginalised communities; expanded local and international networks; identified opportunities for continued collaboration beyond the Forum; and contributed to the Forum’s final declaration by embedding critical education and justice at the heart of a broader peacebuilding vision.
Language: Turkish, Spanish and English (with Kurdish-Turkish translation)
Participation: Open to everyone with professionals and researchers in educaiton are especially encouraged to join.
Capacity: 20 people