Frequently Asked Questions 1. What is the Peace Army of Costa Rica? The Peace Army of Costa Rica is an “army” of individuals trained to teach the skills of “feeling peace” and “speaking peace” to the citizens of Costa Rica, with emphasis on teacher training in public schools. 2. Why did you name your project the Peace "Army"? Traditionally, an army acts to overpower through
violence--the Peace Army
is acting to empower the people of Costa Rica (a country that abolished its
army over fifty years ago) by giving them tools that allow them to "feel
peace" and "speak peace."
3. What is needed to meet this challenge? As Dr. Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Prize winner from Costa Rica, said in the April 11 issue of The Tico Times, “Peace is not a dream, it’s an arduous task. We must start by finding peaceful solutions to everyday conflicts with the people around us. Peace does not begin with the other person, it begins within each and every one of us.” For peace to begin with each Costa Rican, highly effective methods of teaching social and emotional skills must be integrated on a daily basis into classrooms in the schools. The two social and emotional skills that are essential in achieving non-violence are: 1. Feeling peace (emotional skill) 2. Communicating peace (social skill) An effective, scientifically-validated method of “feeling peace” is called Freeze Framer®, developed by the Institute of HeartMath. This is a software program with a finger sensor for monitoring heart rhythms that teaches children in 6-10 sessions how to align the activity of the brain and the heart. As a result, students improve emotional stability, impulse control, anger management and academic test scores. Through this cutting-edge technology, it is now possible to teach “emotional peace” in public schools. An effective method of “communicating peace” is Nonviolent Communicationsm (NVC), developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. He founded the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) in 1984, which now provides training in over 30 countries. Funded by UNESCO, the CNVC team in Yugoslavia has trained tens of thousands of students and teachers. In Israel, 40 schools have received NVC where the director of the Ministry of Education’s National Program for the Prevention of Violence is an NVC trainer. This method has stood the test of time and cross-cultural effectiveness. Both of these methods have already been fully proven and, if they were implemented in Costa Rica’s public school system, violence would decrease in the schools and, over time, in the entire country. 4. Who in Costa Rica has endorsed Rita Marie Johnson’s work through the Rasur Foundation? Peace Army Primary Supporters
5. Who are the primary partners in the methodology of this social and emotional learning?
6. When did this program begin? A volunteer training program began on October 3, 2004 to prepare volunteers for working in a pilot project. A pilot project in the Escuela de Excelencia Elías Jimenéz Castro began on February 6, 2004. With the full support of Director Carlos Corales, fourteen teachers have committed to participate in nine training days, one per month for nine months. They will also participate in weekly coaching and practice sessions. Currently the Peace Army is working in a pilot program at the Honduras School that was started in February 2006. In the last 2˝ years, the Peace Army trained 38 teachers in two pilot schools. Graduate students conducted an evaluation, which indicated a significant increase in anger management, conflict prevention and conflict resolution. To begin up scaling, 620 educators will be trained along with 1000 individuals, such as police officers, who are on the frontline of violence in 2007-2008. 7. How can I help support the Peace Army? There are many ways in which we could use your
help. Here are a few of
the ways that you could participate:
8. How do you know that the methods work? The two methods we use, Freeze-Framer and Nonviolent
Communication, have
been shown through scientific and statistical research to be effective.
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