Center for Peace Studies

The Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) grew out of various direct forms of peace-building in Western Slavonia, such as the Voluntary Project Pakrac, from 1993 to 1997). CPS aims at promoting the values of non-violence, social justice, respect for human rights, tolerance, and accepting differences through participative methods such as peace education, research, and through publicly advocating peace-building.
CPS operates through two complementary programs – peace education and peace-building public policies, with a focus on human and minority rights, human security, combating discrimination, asylum rights, education policies, and on dealing with the past.
CPS considers that through building a network of educated citizens, who are skilled in employing the values of peace-building, it contributes to the process of creating an active and influential civil society. By strengthening active and interested citizens, CPS acts as a driving force in promoting a positive and sustainable peace. CPS wants to share its peace-building experience with all interested citizens at the local, regional, and global level.
Through public events and public actions, CPS aims to influence the public, the media and state structures, as well as encourage them to be more active when it comes to the processes of facing the past, articulating peace-building policies, and the peace-building programs.
Today, The Centre for Peace Studies deems the following activities to be fundamentally essential for reducing the unjust distribution of power within society, and for the active transformation of conflict:
• Education for peace, non-violence, and on human rights;
• Advocating peace education within the system of formal education;
• Specialized education for implementing standards of protection of human rights, and for the implementation of anti-discriminatory norms;
• Transforming traditional concepts of security policies into concepts of the individual’s security;
• Fight against xenophobia and racism, advocating global human solidarity through the affirmation of asylum rights, as well as supporting the integration of foreigners based upon the principles of interculturalism;
• Advocating intercultural dialogue, and re-examining the traditional concepts of dominant identities;
• Individual work with victims of human-rights violations, and helping them to create a normal life as fulfilled members of our society;
• Reducing social-economic injustice and the exclusion of certain groups within society;

Public Policy Program. CPS follows all public policies dealing with issues identified as relevant within the extensive and positive context of peace-building. Those issues include – anti-discrimination, asylum rights, human security, interethnic relations, intercultural dialogue and peace education.
CPS works on public policies from the initial process of drafting and analyzing a particular policy; through which, CPS advocates a change or modification of a policy; conducts research and make recommendations as a basis for a certain policy and/or advocates for a new one. CPS advocates for extensive social change in all of the aforementioned issues. Through education and advocate campaigns, CPS addresses the public; while through research, analysis, and expertise, CPS contributes to changes in legislation.

Peace Education Program. CPS’s peace education program consists of: 1. Peace Studies as a holistic interdisciplinary peace-education program for interested citizens and citizens; 2. MIRamiDA Youth – a program for invigorating young people who are active in their own communities; 3. Human-Rights Schools – a training program for high-school students; 4. Trainings for Trainers as an empirical methodical trainings program for disseminating empirical participative peace education.