The workshop, designed to raise awareness on the environmental and culture of peace programmes among educators from the Middle East, was held under the patronage of Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khalid Touqan.

School teachers and coordinators from Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine were provided with the necessary knowledge, skills and commitment to become involved in the Life-Link Programme global campaign “Youth Caring and Sharing Actions Worldwide 2000+.”

The objective of such a campaign is to promote and initiate concrete caring and sharing actions in and among schools worldwide in areas such as the environment, human rights, conflict resolution and constructive collaboration, as a way to achieve a world of security, according to a UNESCO statement.

As a complementary step participants at the workshop also studied ways to integrate the Life-Link Programme in the UNESCO Associated Schools Project network (ASPnet) (www.unesco.org/education/asp), a global platform of some 7,900 educational institutions in 176 countries, ranging from preschools and primary to secondary schools and teacher training institutions, who work in support of quality education in practice.

A total of 454 schools in the Arab states region are already part of this network, out of which some 120 private and public schools are Jordanian.

Synergies between the Life-Link Friendship School Programme and UNESCO’s ASPnet Programme represent a new step in helping countries achieve the goals of the International Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, as well as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010).

Both decades were proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2002 and 1998, respectively, and UNESCO was designated as the lead agency to actively promote them.