Museum Programs

Dialogue for Democracy Program

Peace School Foundation of Monte Sole, along with all Coalition member sites, has designed a program called Dialogues for Democracy. The Dialogues for Democracy help visitors draw connections between the past and the present by using the histories of the sites to inspire new conversations and action on pressing contemporary issues.

Other Programs

European Citizenship Camp
Approximately 20 students from France and Germany come together to study the history of Monte Sole and use it as the basis for discussions on how they want to define the values and responsibilities of European citizenship. Participants review and critique the draft European Constitution in light of the lessons they choose to take from the Monte Sole massacre and World War II.

Start Playing
‘Start Playing’ is a conflict resolution program for primary school students. Children are divided into groups of ‘circles’ and ‘triangles’ from outer space, who must come together and live on ‘Planet Monte Sole.’ Students work together to develop their own rules for living cohesively, dealing with issues of how to share, what languages to speak, whether and how to mix, and how to greet and judge each other. They then visit the ruins of the village and hear the testimony of a survivor about what happened there. The survivor asks students to share their rules for living together with her/him, and together they refine the rules further based on their reflections on the history of Monte Sole.

Education
Peace School staff offer educational activities and workshops for youth and students that encourage and foster dialogue between people coming from different experiences, cultures and backgrounds. Activities that take place on site at Monte Sole focus on fostering reconciliation, past and present, with special emphasis on human rights education, conflict resolution and analyzing propaganda mechanisms, such as comparing Nazi and Fascist propaganda with present-day cases.

Historical Research
The Peace School has produced a multilingual video documentary featuring the oral histories of those who survived the massacre at Monte Sole that will be circulated to local schools. The Peace School cultivates dialogue and research on other “places of memory” that are working to promote peace and human rights education by organizing international workshops that examine international best practices on memory and reconciliation work, and publishing reports on conference outcomes.

Public and International Relations
The Peace School promotes itself as a point of contact and confrontation for groups, public and private bodies, association and persons who are committed to promoting peace, values of freedom and justice, and decentralized cooperation. It is developing an original approach to international cooperation and is involved in international projects of “community reconstruction” in locations where issues of reconciliation and memory are at stake. Two major projects include networking with the Association of Israeli Majors (ULAI) and the Palestinian Majors (APLA), and a reconstruction and agriculture development project in Klina, Kosovo, led by the Association Reggio Terzo Mondo in cooperation with the Faculty of Agrarian Studies at the University of Bologna.