The Peace Ambassador Academy is a joint initiative of Finnish peace and comprehensive security actors to promote peace training for young people and young adults and to support their peace building activities.
Why Peace Ambassador Academy
Peace is a prerequisite for a good life, the development of societies and the preservation of the environment. Peace does not come about by itself, but must be maintained and developed. Investing in peace is an investment to secure the future of communities, states and businesses.
We at the Ambassadors for Peace Academy believe that peace is possible and people want to work to maintain it. All they need is knowledge, skills, tools, networks and courage. It is up to us to give them.
Since 2016, we have trained more than 300 young people and young adults to become ambassadors for peace in their communities. The participants have carried out dozens of projects and established several groups and associations to make peace.
Our goals
- We provide education on peace and human security, especially for young people and young adults: Building peace and reconciliation becomes a civic skill.
- Together with young participants, we develop processes and projects to maintain and promote peace, human rights and democracy: We enable active citizenship.
- We support our stakeholders and partners by providing training and materials on peace for target groups, volunteers and staff: Expertise in peacebuilding is increasing.
- We serve as a platform for organisations engaged in sustainable peace and peace education: cooperation between actors in broad and human security will increase.
- We will strengthen the participation of young people and women in foreign and security policy decision-making: We will implement UN Resolutions 2250 Youth, Peace and Security and 1325 Women, Peace and Security at the national level.
Antti Pentikäinen, the Director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation and Research Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace (GMU)
My dream for a long time has been to support Finnish young people in getting involved in mediation and strengthening reconciliation. The Peace Ambassador Academy aims to bring together parties working with young people so that everyone does not have to organise training for them separately. It is great to be involved in this project as one of the educators – and I bring both teaching content from the Carter School and the findings of the latest research, which I believe will be useful to all organizers.
Trainings
Usually our students start with Basic Course for Peace Ambassadors (5 ECTS). The learning is conducted on our learning environment (Claned), on online video lectures and on two weekends training sessions on our partners campus. Students do PeaceLabs -project work.
Open Lectures are good way to learn wide range of current peace issues. Our volunteers organize lectures during semester.
At the moment we are developing several short and longer trainings releted to conflict resolution skills and reconciliation.
Partners
The work of the Peace Ambassador Academy are carried out jointly by several different organisations. We are open to new partners.
Strategic partners
The strategic partners organise and develop the work of the Peace Ambassador Academy.
Crisis Management Center (CMC Finland), Savonia Applied University, peace organization Committee of 100 in Finland, Workers Academy,
Scientific advisors
The scientific partners make the latest research and expertise available to the trainings.
Tampere Peace Research Institute TAPRI, George Mason university Carter School, Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation.
Training partners
Training providers implement practical training by making their own expertise available for joint use. They have an official licence from Ministry of Education to give certificates and credits. They also support our educational planning, help develop pedagogy and organise trainings.
STEP adult education center, Workers Academy
Cooperation partners
The partners bring their own expertise and opportunities for action to participants.
Peace and security think tank SaferGlobe.
Became a partner
The activities of the Peace Ambassador Academy are based on socio-diversity, which means that each partner participates as themselves. The activities are networked and help to provide the expertise and training of each actor for a common entity – for the development of the extensive security and peace work of each partner and the whole of Finland. And later for global society too.
The partners involved not only contribute to peace education, but also benefit from the Peace Ambassador Academy themselves: they will have access to joint training resources for training their own personnel and elected officials, as well as the opportunity to participate in the development of the field and their own work.
The Ambassador for Peace Academy is a platform from which we guide young people to activities that interest them. All projects and processes created by young people are implemented together with partners. The Peace Ambassador Academy does not compete with the organisations’ own activities.
If you are interested in partnering with us, please do not hesitate contact info[at]rauhanlahettilasakatemia.fi.
Funding
In total, our funding is approximately 50,000 euros per year. The more money we receive, the more training we organise. The budget is decided and the finances are supervised by a steering group consisting of partners.
The largest and most important source of funding for the Ambassadors for Peace Academy is the working time spent by partners on the implementation and development of activities. Annual partner payments are also a key part of our funding.
Participant fees, travel and accommodation expenses paid by the participants themselves are one part of our funding. Our goal is to keep them as low as possible so that as many people as possible can participate in our activities.
We have received grants for organising and developing our activities from the Workers’ Study Fund. In the past also Ministry for Foreing Affairs of Finland (MFA) funded our national implementation activities of UN resolution 2250.
Projects
About a third of our operations are funded by project funding. At the moment we have the following ongoing projects:
- Erasmus+ Youth Participation funding for organising reconciliation-themed further education (2023-2024) totals approximately €24,200.
- Erasmus+ KA2 Small strategic partnership project (2024-2025) for develop European wide education, total 30,000 €.