“…they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”Bible, Isaiah 2:4
Every campaign has had at least one activity or event that has taken cognizance of conflict and militarisation related issues. This year, on December 5, 2018, we offered a one-day workshop on peace, disarmament and gender equality.
We opened with an ice-breaker round and quickly got to work.
The day was divided into three parts. In the first, we reviewed key concepts: peace, conflict, gender and militarisation.
Participants were first invited to draw a mural of 'peace.' This was the result. (Thank you, N.Shekar, for the gift of the white boards!)
The second session was an exploration of traditional security topics such as arms races, nuclear politics, small arms and disarmament from a gender perspective. We opened with Dr. Seuss' 'Butter Battle Book', always a good introduction to ideas like deterrence and the security dilemma. Sudaroli Ramasamy introduced participants to small arms and light weapons, and the gender impact of their proliferation and trade. 
The last session was designed to be an active review of the ideas learned through the day. Partiicpants were assigned the task of choosing one issue that brought together four out of the following five: peace, conflict, arms, security, gender violence. They would then design a public education campaign around this. The message they chose was this: Gender violence reduces security so that peace feels like conflict. The negotiation and crafting of this message took up the allocated time, but enthused, most participants have pledged to return in January to carry out this campaign. Let's see!
A good time was had by all, and going by their feedback, everyone learned something--including the facilitator!
