Keep in touch!
The online Spring School is over and what a feast it was once again. With speakers from 25 different countries, covering a wide span of topics related to peacebuilding, we hope you learned something that you can use in your future endeavours.
Here is a list of resources and references that came up in the conversations.
Rima Swinfen & Alison Phipps
Link to Rima's podcast channel.
Link to the video about Ghaat.
BerRima Ghaat recipe ingredient list:
- 2 (heaped) tablespoons of oats
- 2 table spoons ground almonds
- 2 table spoons of ground pumpkin seeds
- 2 table spoons of ground flax seeds
- 1 table spoon of poppy seeds
- 1 small table spoon of ghee
- 1 table spoon and a bit with beetroot powder
Preparation:
- Stir till stiff with a spurtle/stick.
- Tip into a bowl formed into a ball.
- Make a hole in the centre.
- Melt a small amount of ghee
- Pour ghee into the hole.
- Add a tea spoon of Berbera Spice.
- Pour plain yogurt around on side of the ball of ghaat
- Sprinkle a little Berbera spice on the yogurt.
- Add berry sauce or fruit puree to the other side of the ghaat.
- Eat with your fingers, by taking some ghaat, then dipping in ghee and yogurt and berries.
It’s delicious.
Dilara Özel, Beril Doğan, Hilal Karaoğlan & Şevval Cihankaya
Padlet with collection of songs made during the workshop.
Song created by Miray, Gyorgyi and Hope.
Fergus McNeil
Link to Bloodrush
Link to Little Dovehill
Link to Fergus' podcast The Art of Bridging
St Mungo's mural in Glasgow
Tola Kehinde
Slides from his presentation.
Magda Angélica García von Hoegen
Slides from the workshop.
Link to her music.
Springschool collective poem
Gifts are in the feet
I am dancing there in peace.
Cool breeze, soft and tender
like the cotton.
Flowy, soft cotton,
Fresh laundry fragrance.
Dancing with water,
Waves cannot control.
Like a ball
At the base of my throat,
Iridescent bubble
Throat flow.
Fresh breeze, sounds of waves,
Unstoppable and boundless.
The body remembers
The way to home.
Dani
Link to the Republia Times game
CBS news' video Born good? Babies help unlock the origins of morality
Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale, Dr Giovanna Fassetta, Dr Sahar Alshobaki & Damian Ross
Shira Klein
Book Italy's Jews from Emancipation to Fascism
Article Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust
Alison's article Fairtrade Fortnight and boycotts are just the start
Jen Wilson
A short yoga nidra especially for Spring Schoolers
A long yoga nidra especially for Spring Schoolers
Diana Agamez, Luisa Machacon & Isabella Corvino
We Care: Photography and Poetry Exhibition
Link to the video we watched
Avril Bellinger & Kathrin Warth
Podcast episode about The Strengths Approach in Practice.
Slides from the presentation.
Martin Kerr
Link to Overdue for a Revolution
Adriana Uribe & Dr Anna Fancett
Grampian Regional Equality Council
Email: language-cafe@grec.co.uk
Sarah Cox’s book Meeting the Needs of Reunited Refugee Families: An Ecological, Multilingual Approach to Language Learning
POLO-PEREZ, NURIA (2022) Experiencing multilingual identities and interculturality through learning and socialising in languages: The ecologies of two “language cafés”. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
Luigi Toscano
Link to the film we watched
Luigi's website
Film: Black Sugar Red Blood
Alison’s recommendation: The Reith Lectures
Ramon Ayres & Alison Ribeiro de Menezes
Trailer for REWIND
Robert McNeil’s book: Grave Faces
Khaled Alostath
Book: GRIEF IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE - KEDER BENIM İKİNCİ DİLİMDİR
For a copy of the book please email ostathkhaled@gmail.com
Khaled's LinkedIn profile
Resources from the two Summits on Rebuilding Higher Education in Palestine co-organised by Glasgow and HBKU Qatar in December 2024 and April 2025. The full addresses and keynote panels from the Ministers and Education experts are at this link (day 1) and this link (day 2). Emphasis here was on education as a lifeline and the emergent curriculum as well as Gaza requiring a redefinition of what education is.
Marcus Russell Slater
Link to the Padlet board.
Link to the introductory film.
Photos of the performance.
Upcoming event A winter movement - Movement as a means of understanding (Exhibition & Workshop) 1-5 December 2025
Brice Catherin & Afulodidim Nikefolosi
Blessing Oluchukwu Awamba
Renu Sikka
Sadly couldn't present, but do have a look at her project here.
RIELA session
Links to our books:
The Warriors Who Do Not Fight, by Alison Phipps and Tawona Sitholé. Part 2 is due to come out soon.
Upcoming: Exploring Restorative Intercultural Practices: Fire Stories
The Refugee Abyss, by Hyab Teklehaimanot Yohannes
A Handbook of Integration with Refugees: Global Learnings from Scotland
Get a 50% discount with code HIR30.
Hospitable Linguistics: Alternative, Indigenous and Critical Approaches to Language Research and Language Encounters, by editors Nic Faraclas, Anne Storch and Vivieka Velupillai
Cultures of Sustainable Peace: Conflict Transformation, Gender-Based Violence, Decolonial Praxes, by editors Hyab Teklehaimanot Yohannes, Alison Phipps and Tawona Sitholé
CUSP project: https://www.cuspnetwork.org/
Tawona's radio play Afamba Apota: https://soundcloud.com/unescorila/afamba-apota
Art Bridges
Link to the video performance
Sophie Spickenbom
Sophie's presentation slides
Hyab’s reaction: https://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-14-the-value-of-africas-aesthetics/
Mark’s reaction: https://www.musicbroth.org/
Bella’s reaction: https://makeabignoise.org.uk/about/big-noise-govanhill
Link to the dance project
Dr Bilgin Ayata
Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State project
Migration for Development and Equality (MIDEQ) project
Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot (2023) Refugee trafficking in a carceral age: a case study of the Sinai trafficking. Journal of Human Trafficking, 9(1), pp. 33-47. (doi: 10.1080/23322705.2021.1885005)
Anna Burgin
Anna's presentation slides
Ayşegül Yurtsever
Dilara Özel’s e-book
Padlet for the group activity.
Open stage
Amera’s book The Diary from Gaza, edited by Fabio Carbone, in support of Academics4Gaza.
Bozhena Yakimenko
Anne Storch
Phipps, Alison, Sithole, Tawona and Yohannes, Hyab (2025) Language gardens: returning to the poetics found in the linguistic diversity of the land. Journal of Education for Multilingualism, 2(1), pp. 27-51.
Matt Rabagliati
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Adam Tooze’s article The End of Development
Book Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks, by Marcia Bjornerud
Alison's article in The National: Arran's rocks tell stories of the issues I'm fleeing from
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024
Report of the Independent Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence and Culture (2025)
UNESCO recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
The Reith Lectures: Stuart Russell - Living With Artificial Intelligence
UNESCO report Ethics of neurotechnology
Alison’s recommendation: David Graeber and David Wengrow: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Marzanna Antoniak
Poems from the session:
Your hands seem…
by Shams Langroudi (1950 - )
translated by Mehdi Safaei
Your hands seem
to be flags of peace,
over the ruins of my days,
which hold nothing but routes to
hidden treasures,
the boats and guardians,
who carry the discovered gunpowder
to a distant isle.
Your hands seem
to be strings of a lute,
quietly preserving forbidden songs
in the flowing fire of their rivers,
bright rivers,
that cleanse the faces of defeated soldiers,
in the flames of their wounds.
Your hands,
are like a bright morning,
an early autumn Friday morning,
when beneath the cold bedsheets,
I listen to a distant melody.
Oh, morning’s chill,
that spreads white bedsheets over my body,
it is in tribute to these very hands,
that I
love you.
A fragment of ‘Bustan’ by Saadi Shirazi
offered by Pegah Javansheer, Iran
Do not harm an ant that drags its grain,
For life is sweet — for all who live the same.
Dark-hearted is he, and cold as stone,
Who wishes another to sigh and moan.
Raise not your hand in power on the weak,
For one day you’ll fall — as small as the meek.
Bring joy to the hearts of those cast down,
Remember — your turn may yet come around.
Dandelion in the wind
by Ali Zaregol
translated by Mehdi Safaei
I am not a bird
for borders to hold no meaning to me.
I am not a dandelion
for the wind to carry me away, wherever it pleases.
I am not a river
to wander blindly toward the sea, unbound by maps.
I am human—wounded and wearied—
scarred by the tyranny of geography.
What do you know of the Middle East?
What do you know of fear spun into every moment of your life,
fear of losing everything,
fear of slipping away into oblivion?
What do you know
of that thunderous silence compelled in the wake of every injustice,
of that whisper stirring deep inside your soul:
“Be silent.
If silence leads to anger,
then—be silent.”
What could you know of that?
What do you know of the bitterest of wishes—
the aching desire
to be “able to carry your homeland with you,
wherever you go”?
What do you know of me?
I am not a bird.
I am not a dandelion.
I am not a river.
I am human, searching for shelter
With a Pandora’s box strapped tightly to my back,
holding not only regret, death, sorrow, and filth—
but hope as well.
Peace was a strange nightmare
by Herberth Cea [El Salvador - Scotland]
translated from Spanish by Sorana Goga
Peace was a strange nightmare
they dreamed of it
but nobody understood what it really was.
They didn't know what to do without shields,
it was a waste of time to think that their arms were weapons,
that they could kill without mentioning the name of their god.
They knew how to calm their anxieties
they said that everything was fine
that the children would grow up
and would know that peace existed in the strangest of dreams
they would believe that playing was killing
and they would forget their blood,
they would have a new face
Of the Nights
by Fayeza, Afghanistan
The nights never bear witness.
They pass, as if they have never been there.
The nights cloak the faces of monsters,
yet grant no shelter to those in despair.
When I am held captive in darkness, unable to flee,
the night summons the nightmares upon me.
In the nightmares,
I am estranged from my mother tongue.
My words are stolen;
My voice is gone;
My hands abandon me;
My feet refuse the ground.
My hair twirl in wind,
in no playful dance,
battling with the night and howling in pain.
I am forsaken then,
my eyes only remain.
In nightmares, sometimes
from the grapevines of our house
some pairs of eyes hang suspended,
clinging to my steps,
as I walk across the floor,
as I close the kitchen door.
The eyes press against the windowpane,
as they weep drops of strange wine
onto the wet tiles.
I want to flee from their gazes,
but the prints of my steps,
soaked in strange crimson wine,
remain on the tiles.
My footprints,
and the gazes of the vines’ eyes
are all over the house,
like drops of blood at the scene of a heinous crime.
The nights erase my footprints.
The nights bear no witness.
They just pass,
as if they have never been there.
At last,
I reclaim my hands;
My voice returns;
My feet make peace with the earth.
The mornings arrive; The words return;
and my Mother Tongue is mine again.
and I, in a frenzy, cry out
of the crime wrought upon me.
I cry out:
Oh, words of my Mother Tongue! Deliver me from the nights!
Do not abandon me to the dread of nights and snares of nightmares.
The words stand witness;
They will testify how the nights showered rains of fire upon me.
They know.
They are my witnesses.
They are my hands and my feet.
They bring me back to peace.
The words are my refuge.
Miscellaneous
Habtat Zerezghi's music that Hyab played during the break.
Amira Atiya Abu Al-Husain's poem When I Return.
Full programme is out!
The full programme is out! Do make sure you read it before the event, so many exciting sessions happening it will be difficult to choose which one to attend. If you can't decide, you could always... attend them all!
Please note that there has been a small change in the programme: Dr Shira Klein and Dr Bilgin Ayata have swapped slots. This means that Dr Klein will now present on the Monday afternoon and Dr Ayata on the Friday morning.
We look forward to seeing you at the end of October.
Tickets released!
It has happened: the registration link for our online UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2025 (May Peace Prevail) is live!
Book your free tickets now: RIELASpring25online.eventbrite.co.uk
We look forward to seeing you at the end of October!
Free tickets: RIELASpring25online.eventbrite.co.uk
Contributors announced!
Once again we have curated an amazing programme for you, with contributions from all over the world. The preliminary schedule is below.
Monday 27 October
Keynote speakers: Prof Alison Phipps (UNESCO RIELA) & Shira Klein (Academics for Peace)
Keynote musician: Fergus McNeil
Presenters:
- Dilara Özel, Beril Doğan, Hilal Karaoğlan, Şevval Cihankaya - Singing Peace Together: Co-Creating Multilingual Songs
- Tola Benjamin Kehinde (Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria) - Reimagining Peacebuilding through Decolonial Pedagogy and AI: Lessons from Nigeria
- Magda Angélica García von Hoegen - Poetry for Peace
- Miray Filiz - TBC
- Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale, Dr Giovanna Fassetta, Dr Sahar Alshobaki (all University of Glasgow) & Damian Ross (University of Porto) - The LINEs for Palestine project
Tuesday 28 October
Keynote speaker: Luigi Toscano (UNESCO Artist for Peace)
Keynote musician: Martin Kerr
Presenters:
- Diana Agamez, Luisa Machacon & Isabella Corvino - We Care: Bodies as archives of memory. The Reciprocity of Care.
- Dani - Cultivating Digital – Emotional Competencies for Resilience Building amidst Violences in Virtual Space
- Kalika Kastein - When a Country Becomes a Choir: what 30,000 voices can do
- Kathrin Warth & Avril Bellinger - Looking for Loopholes: Using the strengths approach in local government refugee support in Germany
- Adriana Uribe & Dr Anna Fancett (Grampian Regional Equality Council) - Creative Language Practice for Peace Education: Exploring language cafes as centres for peace and inclusion
- Benjamin Carey - Why cookbooks matter
Wednesday 29 October
Keynote speakers: Ramon Ayres (Ephemeral Ensemble) & Alison Ribeiro de Menezes (University of Warwick)
Keynote musician: Brice Catherin
Presenters:
- Khaled Alostath - Teaching Through Trauma: Emergent Curriculum in the Gaza Strip
- Marcus Russell Slater - Transposed into sl-o-w-ing and stilling places of silence
- Xiaofan Xu (Guardians of Bamiyan & Guardians of Gandhara) - The Naan Class: From Healing to Hope through Heritage and Art
- Blessing Oluchukwu Awamba - The learned ability to coexist peacefully
- Marzanna Antoniak - "Where Words Lay Down Arms" poetry in discussion
Thursday 30 October
Keynote presenter: Naomi Head (University of Glasgow)
Keynote musician: Magda Angélica García von Hoegen
Presenters:
- Renu Sikka (UNESCO RIELA Affiliate Artist) - Our Stories on a Plate
- Laavanya Varadarajan Shanmugapriya, Alice Melbourne, Qinzi Zhang, Simran Darak, Natasha Byers-Smith & Emma Girardet (Art Bridges) - Art Bridge Glasgow
- Rezvan Sayyad (Würzburg University, Germany) - Who Gets the Mic? The objectification of Women in Persian Rap and Hip-Hop Culture
- Geraldine Sinyuy (UNESCO RIELA Affiliate Artist) - An Appeasement Model
- Claire Chalmers & Mark Langdon (Educators for Peace) - Visioning Education for Peace – 2075
- Sophie Spickenbom (University of Glasgow) - Playing Peace: Exploring Relational approaches to Peacebuilding Through Music in Rwanda
Friday 31 October
Keynote presenters: Dr Bilgin Ayata (Graz University / Elastic Borders project) & Matt Rabagliati (UNESCO UK)
Keynote musician: Bozhena Yakymenko
Presenters:
- Brice Catherin & Afulodidim Nikefolosi - Decolonial Love?
- Anna Burgin (Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | University of Otago) - Everyday peacebuilding in refugee resettlement: supporting a more peaceful Aotearoa New Zealand
- Ayşegül Yurtsever - Teaching for Peace and Language through a Multilayered Approach in EFL Classroom
- Anne Storch (University of Cologne, Germany) - A woman's garden
- Ruchi Saini - Art-based research and gender-based violence: Voices from India
Call for contributions out now!
May Peace Prevail
Following the success of the in person Spring School in May of this year, we are now preparing for an online version of the same event, traditionally hosted during the Southern Hemisphere Spring (27-31 October). The focus will be the same as in May: we will be looking at peacebuilding, specifically using arts, languages and education. We invite proposals which explore how to build peace in the minds of people, how to live together peacefully, restoratively and interculturally, how to respond to and counteract current events worldwide that seek to divide societies, and how to ensure that peace prevails, founded on justice.
In so doing we acknowledge that to even contemplate peace when colleagues and friends in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and especially in Gaza, Sudan, Tigray, Ukraine and Lebanon (full list of armed conflicts available here) are experiencing genocide and war crimes of the most horrifying nature is, in itself, a luxury. We are seeing many of the international agreements and conventions which bind our work in the UNESCO Chair, at the University of Glasgow, in shreds and our own critical discussions mean that we have lost much faith, even the little we may have had, in peace-building initiatives. We see our work at present as requiring a degree of resignation from the violent structures which have now comprehensively failed. To work alongside those who should have been offered international refugee protection such that their lives and the conditions for their dignity and life might have been restored is now very much our urgent task. But how to do this when we are grieving tangible and intangible losses on so many levels? What sustains the work of peacebuilding and conflict transformation when language fails, when art is mourning, when grief is raw and critical capacities struggle to make any sense of the world?
And yet – this is our task as people of intellect. And study. And Art. And education. So, what might we say when words fail, when resignation is a necessary task, when forms which held hope no longer exist or are themselves destituted of all power?
Sub-topics
We invite proposals which touch on or address:
- Non-violent strategies to prevent hatred, wars, and violent conflicts, we are especially interested in strategies that include languages and/or arts.
- Examples by community groups/organisations where peacebuilding is part of the integration methodology: what are the difficulties and best practices?
- Researching “peacebuilding”, how to deal with research-related issues (access to conflict areas, cultural representation, story extraction etc.).
- Educating the next generation of peacebuilders: bearing witness and passing on knowledge, approaches to integrate peacebuilding and conflict resolution into school curricula.
- When peace is not your daily reality, what can be done? Methods for using art to preserve the socio-cultural memory of people affected by conflict and to support mental health.
- Strategies for creating spaces for reconciliation and dialogue, creative art approaches to facilitate healing in post-conflict societies.
- Critical perspectives on liberal peacebuilding, on securitisation and theoretical models, routed in praxis, for enabling peace to prevail, perspectives from people with lived experience of conflict and persecution.
Structure of the Spring School
This is a 5-day online, taking place on 27-31 October using Zoom. We will structure the contributions in set blocks of 5/30/45/90 minutes, and proposals should bear this in mind. Of course, this is just a guide and proposals of a longer/shorter duration will be considered. We are open to most types of interaction at the Spring School!
Examples of ways to contribute:
- Workshop
- Presentation – If your proposal has a more academic slant, you will be allotted a maximum of 30 mins. We suggest 20/10 or 15/15 mins presentation and discussion.
- Interview / panel discussion
- Pecha Kucha style presentation – 5 minutes each, these will be grouped together into a pecha kucha block of presentations
- Performance – Theatre, dance, song, music, poetry, spoken word, storytelling etc.
- Hackathon/problem solving session
- Other, please be creative!
Submission Process
Please submit a short proposal describing your contribution to unesco-riela@glasgow.ac.uk. If you like forms, you can download the Online Spring School 2025 proposal form here. If you don’t like forms, feel free to send us your proposal in one of the following formats:
- Written description of maximum one side A4 (11pt Calibri).
- Link to an audio/video recording of maximum 2 minutes.
Please include:
- Title of your contribution;
- Which sub-topic(s) of the Spring School your contribution addresses;
- Format and duration of contribution;
- A short description of the contribution and its aims;
- Names and organisations of the people involved in your session;
- Any audio-visual, IT, space, access, language or other requirements you might have;
- Any days between 27-31 October you won't be able to present.
For questions, comments or to discuss your ideas, please contact Bella Hoogeveen at unesco-riela@glasgow.ac.uk.
Deadline for submission is midnight on Monday 4 August 2025.
Next steps
Proposals will be reviewed by members of the RIELA team and you will be notified of the outcome by 26 August 2025. An abstract, biography, and images for the programme will be requested upon acceptance and we will request this is returned by Tuesday 16 September 2025.
Download the Online Spring School 2025 call for contributions.