Basic Training Workshop Reaches 17 Institutions in India

A Basic Training Workshop on the Learning to Live Together (LTLT) Programme was conducted in Coimbatore, India from 19 to 20 March 2018 by Shanti Ashram, bringing together 34 teachers from 17 institutions.

Child and Youth Participation in the GNRC Fifth Forum

From 6 to 8 May 2017, 64 children and youth from 21 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America and the Caribbean, gathered in Panama City to learn from one another and to get prepared for an active participation in the discussions, working groups and plenary sessions of the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) Fifth Forum. Arigatou International Geneva was commissioned to plan, organize and run the Pre-Meeting, support the consultations with children that took place before the event in several countries, and the activities that will follow after the Forum.

Ideas flow when people talk

"Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking.
It doesn’t have to be the future. With technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded.
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking."
Stephen Hawking

Investing time in building relationships with children:

My mind runs back to a conversation I had with my adorable 7-year-old nephew Aditya Aram over Christmas 2017. We had just returned from a field visit. As we got off the car, he asked ‘Bua - who is the boss at Shanti Ashram?’ The word ‘Boss’ bothered me. Within a fraction of a second, it made me reflect as to what leadership example I was presenting to him. Even as I managed to answer this question, his second question quickly followed, ‘When you die - who will lead?’ To this, I said very honestly, that I had not started thinking about it, but I was sure that someone good and able would be ready to lead. Throughout the conversation, he was engaged, curious and patient and it seemed that just having the space to ask questions and to be in the conversation were important first steps for him. In the week preceding this particular conversation, we had often walked to my office and participated in programmes together. He got to see my work first hand at the International Center for Child & Public Health. For me too, just sharing my daily work & life with him was enriching....and I have come to look forward to my conversations with Aditya. My work with children over the past 20 years has given me the rare privilege of meeting children from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. Interactions with them have often been purposeful, open and constant and it has surely helped me evolve into who I have become.

Nurturing Spirituality in Children - Online course

The Arigatou International’s Ethics Education Initiative launched on 25 February an online course on Nurturing Spirituality in Children. The course is part of a series of online courses to complete the Advanced Training Accreditation of the Learning to Live Together Programme.