Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), one of four of PeaceJam’s participating universities, hosted the second annual Peacejam Belgium Youth Conference from 17- 19 November 2017. The Conference brought the participation of Shirin Ebadi, one of the 14 nobel peace prize laureates on PeaceJam’s Board and the first Muslim woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Shirin Ebadi received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize in response to her efforts implementing democracy, peace and women’s rights in the Middle East.

This conference was historical in that it united universities from both the French and Flemish speaking parts of Belgium, reverberating the essential message of unity. UCL, VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and KUL (Katholieke UniversiteitLeuven) co-organise the Peacejam Belgium conference. Their participation reflects their enthusiasm and determination for the event to become an important action for peacebuilding in Belgium involving their students and young people of schoolgoing age. The four universities take turns in hosting the annual PeaceJam event. The Conference was launched with a panel discussion featuring Ms Shirin Ebadi as the VIP guest speaker together with university professors of each of the four universities on Friday afternoon (see enclosure). The panel discussion was attended by media and distinguished guests.

UCL was supported by the Learning for Well Being Foundation and the European Peer Training Organisation (EPTO) who actively recruited teachers and young people from secondary schools and youth organisations to attend the conference. EPTO organised 3 training sessions for teachers and youth leaders in 2017 and presented the Compassion in Action Curriculum during school visits throughout the year. EPTO, with its track record of European Youth Projects convinced the European Commission to fund a 3- year PeaceJam Europe project which started on 1 December 2017.

Read the full report here : Eval Reporting Conf PJ 2017.pdf