The peace-building activities presented in this booklet have been specifically designed to insight interest in peace-building. This unique and powerfully transformative peace-building story How Paper and Ink Came Together and Survived to Sing About It might help instill some new thinking about peace education possibilities and its future directions. Traditionally peace education has involved the exploration of issues related to peace highlighting the inequities and injustices that continue to prevail in our world. Despite our concerted efforts as educators to present and skill our young people in social justice initiatives, even when good solutions and actions are determined, often our young people feel powerless to make any changes. The revenge cycle is perpetuated creating more anger, disappointment and helplessness. Contributing to this are television, radio and newspapers that present the sensational or the exciting but not so good images of our world consequently defining it as unsafe and certainly not peaceful or able to sustain peace in any way.

These transformative activities therefore have been created to counterbalance any helplessness young people may perceive and redirect any prevailing negative thinking not only by them but by ourselves. Together if we can simply change our thinking and create images of a peace-loving world, a world we don’t allow to be defined by negative media images or the not so good stories, then perhaps we can create and sustain world peace. It is important we all believe this to be possible.

The activities do not constitute a peace curriculum but can be simply used, adapted and integrated into any existing teaching and learning programmes. The activities are also not meant to be a prescribed list but hopefully will incite thinking that relates constructively and purposefully to any curriculum being undertaken, especially one that incorporates Multiple Intelligences.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences provide the framework around which the activities are structured for possibilities in creating: