In the two and half years since the Colombian Truth Commission began its mandate, it has developed a pedagogical strategy for generating cultural and educational initiatives to engage the public with its final report. This strategy also seeks to promote cultural and social transformations that contribute to non-repetition of the conflict, taking into account territorial, ethnic, and gender approaches. This snapshot sets out the Truth Commission’s pedagogical commitment and Embrace Dialogue’s (ReD) collaboration in this area.

The Co-creation Laboratories of Pedagogical Tools 

The Commission has undertaken various pedagogical processes to reach most national territories in collaboration with partner organisations. Interventions have focused on young people in schools and universities, recognising that the country’s transformations to achieve a positive and sustainable peace need support from the next generation.

Accordingly, in 2020, the Commission created the co-creation laboratories of pedagogical tools. These laboratories aim to establish a dialogue with educational communities throughout the country in order to promote necessary social and cultural transformations and to support children and adolescents, many of whom grow up in adversity due to the presence and aftermath of armed conflict. The initiative also seeks to strengthen a network of educational communities and their partner organizations. Their efforts aim to set the groundwork for the Commission’s legacy and advance understanding of the final report, which is due by November of this year. 

Developed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratories had their first pilot session in the second half of 2020.  Five members of the ReD pedagogy team were among the one hundred participants. 2021 saw a new cohort begin, featuring one hundred new participants, selected from across the ten macro-territorial regions of the Commission, including people living in exile. In this new process, which will run until the middle of this year, ReD was chosen to carry out the design and coordination of the laboratories. In close cooperation with the Commission’s pedagogy, and drawing on the feedback from the first cohort, ReD made various adjustments to strengthen the delivery and design of the laboratories. 

The laboratories are designed to guide, encourage, and accompany the participants in a co-creation process across 12 sessions throughout the first half of 2021. The participants must develop and/or adapt pedagogical tools to understand the value of the truth and the central elements of the Commission’s mandate: 

1. To clarify and understand what happened in the conflict
2. To recognise the dignity of the victims and the impacts of the conflict
3. To act and build relationships for coexistence, so that conflict does not recur in the places where it persists. 

ReD Investment in the Process 

ReD has designed a process that comprises three stages: 

1. Introduce the process, and allow participants to meet and bond as a team.
2. Guide the formation of working groups and alliances for collaborative action using the proposed tools.
3. Monitor and support the participants in the co-creation process, and consolidate strategies for the creation of a pedagogical network that will promote the continuity of these practices.

ReD has established a structure so that each session combines the three dimensions of human beings – thought, emotion, and action – or in the Commission’s own words:  “clear thinking to understand what happened; feeling moved, which brings human beings closer to each other through emotions; and transformative action that drives changes to current attitudes and realities and seeks not to repeat what happened.” With this in mind, the sessions combine: symbolic moments with spaces for meeting and expressing emotions; conceptual moments that allow understanding and reflection on central issues, such as restorative justice, truth as a public good, and truth pedagogy; and moments of co-creation that are focused on working with pedagogical tools. 

The challenge we face in the development of these laboratories is to achieve the expected result effectively, not only in terms of the pedagogical material produced but also the human fabric the process should generate. Closer human connections lead to a stronger educational community, and in the context of these laboratories, will contribute significantly to maintaining the Truth Commission’s legacy.

Related topics: Embrace Dialogue, final report, pedagogy, Truth, Truth Commission, young people, Youth