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* News - Alphabet of tolerace for teachers
* about program - Alphabet of Tolerance - Teacher training

“HAJDE DA...” GROUP has been implementing the “Alphabet of Tolerance” program since 2001, in primary schools throughout Serbia. The main idea of this program is to educate school personnel (teachers, psychologists, pedagogues...) for successful running of workshops for children, aiming to:

• help children to achieve basic knowledge and experiences of tolerance to differences
• support cooperation and mutual respect within classes.

We’re happy to announce that, so far, we’ve been collaborating with 36 schools; there are 285 teachers/ psychologists/ pedagogues who attended the training and approx. 3000 children participating the workshops.

Since the year of 2005, an animated series “Down With Injustice!” was added to the program, as an educative tool for working with children. The series deals with phenomena such as prejudices, discrimination, violence, but also tolerance and cooperation within the school context. As far as we know, this is the first cartoon for peace education in our country.

This year we made another innovation: at the end of realization of the program, schools that have been included in the project have organized actions, aiming to promote values of cooperation and tolerance. Between January and June of 2006, the four schools have been included in the project: “Svetozar Markovic” (Leskovac), “Dimitrije Tucovic” (Kraljevo), “Velimir Markicevic” (Majdanpek) and “Servo Mihalj” (Zrenjanin). Group from Banatsko Karadjordjevo (schools "Nikola Tesla" and "Petar Kocic") begin their education in spring.

School action in Majdanpek dealt with conflicts between pupils of “Velimir Markicevic” and the neighboring school. The main outcome was a play, that metaphorically treated this issue and the actors were pupils from both schools. There was also held a football tournament, before the play, and each of the participating teams was composed of children from the two schools. Moreover, some days before the main event, children had an opportunity to create drawings subjecting “The World I’d Like To Live In”, that were exposed in the Youth Center on the day of action.
In Kraljevo, it was meant that the school action shell include the youth’s favorite way of expressing, so there was an open call for all students, inviting them to express their non-violent messages through graffiti. Painting of the school yard started on 5th of June – World Environment Day.
Group from Leskovac organized a workshop in Roma Cultural Center, for children for all 8 primary schools in Leskovac. They created posters subjecting more tolerant relationships among people. The posters left in the Cultural Center, as an exhibition of children’s ideas.

Evaluation* at the end of the project showed (these are some of the results):
• 94,6% of teachers claim that participating in the “Alphabet of Tolerance” program helped them to solve negative social situations within their classes (violence, discrimination etc.) more constructively.
• Children’s ability to recognize discrimination increased from 63%, before the program, up to 90% after its implementation.
• Before the workshops, 38% of children claimed that they’re friends with all the other pupils from their class (i.e. that they do not exclude anybody), whilst afterwards this percentage rose up to 58%.
• Asked if they’d accept in their class and/or school children of different origin and/or customs (nation, language, religion...), the percentage of acceptance was high from the start (77,00%), but it increased even more – up to 85,89%.
• When asked if they’d mind to be best friends with a child of different origin and/or customs (nation, language, religion...), after the program, there came to an advancement of more than 13% of children.

* Evaluation is based on groups from Majdanpek Kraljevo, Leskovac and Zrenjanin

Project is supported by Norwegian People's Aid

Our previous experience regarding implementation of program “Alphabet of Tolerance” with children helped us understand that much better effects can be achieved if the workshops with teachers are realized first. In that way enhanced results for children and teachers, as well, are reached. After several revisions of “Alphabet of Tolerance” program has been made, we began communication with teachers, school psychologists, pedagogues, principals, in order to present the program and its positive effects to them.

The program has been changed and improved after each cycle of workshops with children. Children’s comments, critiques and observations were considered seriously and had considerable influence to the program.

At the end of 2002 program “Alphabet of Tolerance” has got credentials of Serbian Ministry for Education and Sports. It was recognized as adequate and high-quality additional program for curriculum. This program provides 80 hours of professional advanced training for teachers.

Number of educated teachers is over 200

Basic aim of program “Alphabet of Tolerance – education and implementation” is:

strengthening of teachers in their professional roles, more exactly, increase of their sensitivity and competence for understanding of social phenomena, such as prejudices, stereotypes, discrimination, social distance, intolerance for differences, etc; the program is also aimed to develop teachers’ skills necessary for establishing an ambience of acceptance and understanding in each class and entire school.



Training has been defined through three essential objectives:

1. To give the teachers opportunity to treat in practice the same topics they will be discussing with children;
2. to present basic workshop skills to teachers, necessary for their future engagement as workshop conductors;
3. to help teachers exercise conducting of “Alphabet of Tolerance” workshops with the colleagues
Structure of the training

Consistent with training objectives, the teachers training is consisted of three parts, three modules:
1. experience part is dedicated to examination of character and origin of prejudices, stereotypes, discrimination and social distance, both on general and personal level (3 work days),
2. educational part is intended for becoming skilled at techniques of non violent communication (communication based on understanding of emotions and needs) and also for study of workshop method (2 work days)
3. practical part is about getting ready for implementation of “Alphabet of Tolerance” program (teachers are supposed to conduct workshops of this program for children); this part is also planned to further discussion of topics participants were most interested in (3 work days)

When the training is finished, teachers are obligated to implement the program (12 workshops) in their work with children. After each two workshops trainers of “Hajde da…” Group are supposed to gather with teachers at supervisory meetings and try to exceed problems and uncertainties that might have emerged during work with children.
At these meetings teachers improve their self-confidence about new roles of workshop conductors and learn additional details about designing of workshops and workshop method.

Manual “Alphabet of Tolerance"

Manual “Alphabet of Tolerance – Program of Non-formal Peace Education for Children Age 10 to 12” is aimed for teachers trained for implementation of “Alphabet of Tolerance” workshops.
It is intended to be support for their work, but also for their further professional development. This booklet is a result of our work with children, as well as our rich experience in training of teachers from Serbia and Vojvodina.

It is first bilingual (Serbian and Magyar) manual in the field of Non-formal education, published in Serbia and Montenegro. It offers scenarios for workshops of this program, but also brings several important articles, written by “Hajde da…” Group trainers especially for the booklet.
Furthermore, it presents one article by well known European trainer and our good fiend, Mr. Mark Taylor. We selected the topics we believe to be useful for teachers engaged in this kind of work with children. The booklet holds recommendations of teachers educated for implementation of “Alphabet of Tolerance” workshops for future participants of the program. There are also several examples of flexible workshops created by teachers.


. External Evaluation - The Alphabet of Tolerance
Anti-discrimination Teacher Training; Education Programme for School Children and TV programme, Biljana Lajovic, Belgrade, Mark Taylor, Brussels, February 2005
download (Word file, 182 Kb)