Arigatou International Geneva

I am currently leading a five year strategic planning process for Arigatou International Geneva with the aim to expand the work on ethics education for children around the world, doubling our impact on education but most importantly on children's lives.  The funding will help to:

1.  Strengthen organisational capacity by reinforcing implementation systems and staff capacity to respond more systematically and strategically; 

2. Scale-up programs, through training of trainers and systematic implementation, in 10 strategic countries where we have done critical work to foster intercultural and interreligious learning through ethics education, and other countries where together with partners we have identified the needs to strengthen social cohesion through ethics education; 

3. Launch a fellowship model for educators to build local capacities and develop systematic and sustainable implementation processes;

4. Conduct a comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation. We conducted our last M&E process in 2014, which produced useful findings. As the programs continue growing, it is critical to understand our current impact, and how best to improve the areas that can enhance the sustainability of our programs and the impact on children.  We envision the creation of communities of practice that can support M&E and strengthen implementation and peer-to peer support. 

I strongly believe there will be no peace and transformation in the world, until education is not reinvented to help transform the many divisions and polarization in our societies. 

I joined Arigatou International because I believe in its vision of bringing people of different cultures and religions together to work for the well-being of children, and because it provides me with a unique platform to co-create with a diverse range of partners, innovate and respond to the ethical demands of our times through education.  

I envision ethics education for children as an integral part of all national curricula across the world, contributing to creating more inclusive and empathic societies.  This will only happen when children from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds are able and allowed to learn together, when education systems prioritize the social-emotional and spiritual well-being of children, when children are empowered to contribute to transforming their communities together with others, and when educators are equipped with tools to address diversity positively, foster ethical values in children and create safe learning environments for dialogue, reflection and collective actions.  This is my vision and I am leading Arigatou International Geneva in collaboration with partners around the world to make it happen! 

We address violent extremism, hate speech, discrimination and xenophobia affecting children’s full development and their ability to live together in harmony with those from diverse backgrounds. We partner with educators and faith-based organizations working directly with children in some of the most vulnerable contexts from Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, India and Indonesia, where extreme ideologies are on the rise, to El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador where gang violence and stigmatization are normalized. We have seen Christian, Muslim and Jewish participants in Israel coming together for the first time to talk about their shared land; Indian children and youth from all socio-economic and religious backgrounds working together; children in Kenya from different ethnic and religious groups critically embracing their differences.

We use a holistic ethics education framework, anchored in a transformative pedagogy that is context-sensitive, helps create safe learning environments and participatory methodologies, and fosters children’s imagination, critical thinking and conscientization, in a self-driven learning process, leading to powerful dialogues and collective action with others. We focus on children’s capacity to nurture their spirituality that allows them to handle their emotions, develop empathy and reconcile with others. The framework fosters interconnectedness and encourages facilitators and children to become role models.  

Holistic approaches:  Our program encompasses four critical areas that are normally addressed separately by other programs: child rights, ethics education, spiritual nurture and interfaith and intercultural learning. By targeting these interrelated areas in one initiative, our education programs go beyond a single approach and allow for the development of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values blending a child-rights based approach to active citizenship with nurturing spirituality and the holistic well-being and development of the child. 

Human Potential and Community Building: We focus on strengthening the agency of children to initiate their own projects through interfaith collaborations, using a horizontal approach in our work with them. Our work does not stop at building the capacity of educators, we focus on connecting education and community engagement to support transformations.

Context-Sensitivity: Our programs are designed to be easily adapted to the needs of societies and children, particularly considering fragile settings and complex realities where violence and injustices affect relations and trust.  The low-cost and flexibility of our programs allow for replication, customization and cascading.

Qualitative Evaluation: We transform evaluation models to include more qualitative approaches to measure changes in attitudes and values, combining several methods that empower children and educators while strengthening communities.   

We are living a historical moment of polarization and division. Never before has it been so vital to restore the social fabric of societies, fostering empathy and relationships of care. Ethics Education responds to this imperative through its Learning to Live Together Program. Since 2018 we reached over 453,000 children, trained over 3,000 facilitators and 51 trainers, in more than 30 countries. 

This program is a model for values-based education to address issues of racism, discrimination or exclusion in schools and communities, while empowering children from different faiths to work collaboratively with others.  We initiated together with 18 partners, groundbreaking work on the spiritual development of children in the early years, supporting caregivers to foster in young children their capacity to build positive relations with themselves and others. These initiatives create the foundations for inclusive societies, and build the next generation of youth able to empathize with others, embrace diversity positively and transform conflicts non-violently.

Our unique partnership model ensures the implementation of programs has a strong local ownership and is cost-effective; we train educators as multipliers and role models for children; develop Communities of Practice and have initiated collaborations with organizations to bring ethics education to national curricula.