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El Salvador: One Major Success The project of radio programmes for rural women was our one major success as described at one stage in the International Journal of Peace Studies, 1996. The secret of its success was its guiding philosophy and the persistence and diplomatic skills of Francisco Lacayo, as mentioned above. Its guiding philosophy was to insist that those who have been in conflict must work together toward goals for the benefit of all. By the end of 1996, participants from the Government and the FMLN were working together on a daily basis to produce radio programmes promoting the rights of women which were broadcast throughout the country and played from loudspeakers at marketplaces. Of course, there were still points of ideological contention between them, which required compromises in the content of the radio programmes, but on the whole they were very proud of what they had accomplished together. And perhaps even more important, a network of over a hundred community correspondents were organized to give constant feedback about the radio broadcasts, what was useful, what was not, how could they be improved. The most important lesson of the El Salvador project was that peace education, could be carried out as a daily process of participation, involving people at both leadership and local community levels across the major lines of conflict in the society. While this process was based upon the basic principles of a culture of peace, the details were not a static text devised by "bureaucrats"or "experts", but a living, self-correcting process. In this sense, it is perhaps better to speak about "cultivating" than "constructing" a culture of peace. Given the success of the radio project, the next challenge was to make it a model for further culture of peace programmes. There seemed to be a breakthrough when, in 1995, I met a dynamic director of the German Development Ministry who was at the same time very active in the evaluation process for the OECD. The OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is the umbrella agency for the development agencies of all the major donor countries, including not only Western Europe, but also Japan, Canada and the United States. Since the German Development Ministry had provided the funds for the El Salvador project, and since we also had a young bright German staff member in the evaluation unit at UNESCO, I proposed that we undertake a joint UNESCO/German evaluation of the project, whereby it could be seen as a model for OECD. Everyone seemed pleased with the idea. [note added in 1999: The evaluation was eventually done - in 1998. But it was too late. Because of bureaucratic problems (poor communication among various UNESCO offices), the deadline of August 1997 passed and no request was submitted to the German Development Agency for continuation of the project. As a result, the radio project was disbanded. A description of the El Salvador project was written up for publication and is available on the Internet at http://www.gmu.edu/academic/ijps/vol1_2/UNESCO.htm ] |