Over the next five years, researchers and practitioners will further develop the peace concept of "Shared Society" on the initiative of the Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate, the Israeli educational and meeting center Givat Haviva and the University of Haifa and make it transferable to other countries with intra-societal conflicts or discrimination against minorities.

The project "Developing the Next-Generation of Shared Society Theory and Practices" has now been successfully launched with an expert academy on the Givat Haviva campus in Menashe, Israel. The academics and practitioners involved in the project from Germany, Israel, Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Norway came together for the first time to kick off the collaboration in theory and practice for the next five years. The project launch was accompanied by a representative of the Club de Madrid. The international organization has been instrumental in developing the concept in recent years.

The perspective of a Shared Society goes beyond earlier approaches to peaceful coexistence between and within societies that were preferred in peace work. A shared society program is a sustainable approach and aims to enable all social groups and individuals to participate equally and as fully as possible in a common society. "The comprehensive action perspective of the Shared Society is not only suitable for countries with intra-societal conflicts, as we know them from Israel, but also for countries against the background of increasing migration movements and current integration challenges, as we are currently observing in Germany," explains Melanie Hussak, research associate at the Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate (RLP) and project coordinator. "The strength of the approach lies in offering options for action at all political and social levels," explains Junior Professor Dr. Janpeter Schilling, Managing Director of the Peace Academy RLP. "This ranges from grassroots initiatives that emerge from the base of the population to an institutional structure geared towards participation." The aim over the next five years is to continuously develop the concept and the resulting practical approaches. In addition to academic research, publications and handouts for practitioners, multipliers and political decision-makers will also be produced.

Over the next few months, the specific challenges of the participating countries and the solutions already in use will be systematically examined in order to learn from each other and generate new knowledge. New projects will also be set up. In Rhineland-Palatinate, a cooperation between the Peace Academy RLP and the Advisory Council for Migration and Integration of the City of Trier is developing an integration concept based on the Shared Society approach. The next expert academy will take place in Kosovo in September 2019.

Givat Haviva is the oldest and largest Israeli educational and meeting center for Jewish-Arab understanding, which is actively committed to a just and sustainable democratic civil society. It was founded in 1949 and carries out projects in the fields of peace work and peace education, support for communal cooperation projects, art and women's and gender issues. Givat Haviva's work focuses on bringing together Jewish and Arab young people. In its flagship project "Shared Communities", Givat Haviva initiates and supports Jewish-Arab community partnerships in Israel. The aim of these partnerships is to strengthen the Jewish-Arab dialog at a political and civil society level and to put the relationship between the two largest population groups in the country on a new and cooperative footing.

Further information:

wp.uni-koblenz.de/sharedsociety/

Contact:
Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate
Melanie Hussak
E-mail: hussak[at]uni-landau.de

Press Office Campus Landau
Kerstin Theilmann
Tel.: 06341 280-32219
E-mail: ktheilmann[at]uni-koblenz-landau.de

Over the next five years, researchers and practitioners will further develop the peace concept of "Shared Society" on the initiative of the Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate, the Israeli educational and meeting center Givat Haviva and the University of Haifa and make it transferable to other countries with intra-societal conflicts or discrimination against minorities.

The project "Developing the Next-Generation of Shared Society Theory and Practices" has now been successfully launched with an expert academy on the Givat Haviva campus in Menashe, Israel. The academics and practitioners involved in the project from Germany, Israel, Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Norway came together for the first time to kick off the collaboration in theory and practice for the next five years. The project launch was accompanied by a representative of the Club de Madrid. The international organization has been instrumental in developing the concept in recent years.

The perspective of a Shared Society goes beyond earlier approaches to peaceful coexistence between and within societies that were preferred in peace work. A shared society program is a sustainable approach and aims to enable all social groups and individuals to participate equally and as fully as possible in a common society. "The comprehensive action perspective of the Shared Society is not only suitable for countries with intra-societal conflicts, as we know them from Israel, but also for countries against the background of increasing migration movements and current integration challenges, as we are currently observing in Germany," explains Melanie Hussak, research associate at the Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate (RLP) and project coordinator. "The strength of the approach lies in offering options for action at all political and social levels," explains Junior Professor Dr. Janpeter Schilling, Managing Director of the Peace Academy RLP. "This ranges from grassroots initiatives that emerge from the base of the population to an institutional structure geared towards participation." The aim over the next five years is to continuously develop the concept and the resulting practical approaches. In addition to academic research, publications and handouts for practitioners, multipliers and political decision-makers will also be produced.

Over the next few months, the specific challenges of the participating countries and the solutions already in use will be systematically examined in order to learn from each other and generate new knowledge. New projects will also be set up. In Rhineland-Palatinate, a cooperation between the Peace Academy RLP and the Advisory Council for Migration and Integration of the City of Trier is developing an integration concept based on the Shared Society approach. The next expert academy will take place in Kosovo in September 2019.

Givat Haviva is the oldest and largest Israeli educational and meeting center for Jewish-Arab understanding, which is actively committed to a just and sustainable democratic civil society. It was founded in 1949 and carries out projects in the fields of peace work and peace education, support for communal cooperation projects, art and women's and gender issues. Givat Haviva's work focuses on bringing together Jewish and Arab young people. In its flagship project "Shared Communities", Givat Haviva initiates and supports Jewish-Arab community partnerships in Israel. The aim of these partnerships is to strengthen the Jewish-Arab dialog at a political and civil society level and to put the relationship between the two largest population groups in the country on a new and cooperative footing.

Further information:

wp.uni-koblenz.de/sharedsociety/

Contact:
Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate
Melanie Hussak
E-mail: hussak[at]uni-landau.de

Press Office Campus Landau
Kerstin Theilmann
Tel.: 06341 280-32219
E-mail: ktheilmann[at]uni-koblenz-landau.de