The Jubilee Centre’s Director of Education, Dr. Tom Harrison, recently met with the Colombian Minister of Education, Yaneth Giha Tovar, whilst giving the keynote address at a character and positive education conference in Bogata. The conference was organised by the Florecer Institute, and was led by its founder, Andrea Ortega Bechara.
Dr. Harrison gave a presentation at the conference, entitled ‘Education for a life of flourishing’, which outlined the connections between positive and character education. The conference was attended by Colombian Senators and members of the Colombian civil service. During the visit, Dr. Harrison also worked with the Florecer Institute to discuss plans for a national roll out of character and positive education programmes in schools.
The visit marks the beginning of the Jubilee Centre’s new initiative of establishing institutional partnerships with different organisations across Central and South America that are active in the area of research and policy in character education.
One of the most significant projects that the Centre will be involved with is the applied research project, Niños Protagonistas, which is funded by the Italian Government. The aim of the project is the prevention of violence among and against children in El Salvador through character education activities.
The Centre is also in partnership with two other applied research projects in the field of character and virtues development among young people. One of which, is through volunteering programmes in Argentina and Paraguay. The other is in the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras), and aims to increase the inclusion of young people from poor families through training, particularly those who have previously emigrated to the US and have been deported.