YOCOPAS: Extending the EMIS Experience

On the Weekend of  31 Oct to 02 Nov 2019,  EMIS held its 5th annual youth conference for peace and sustainability (YOCOPAS). Our theme for this year was, “Ecosystems of peace,” and to explore this theme we brought 180 students from the west bank, Israel, and Denmark so we could unpack the meaning of ecosystems of peace , and through various workshops look at how projects that positively benefit societies are initiated. During the weekend,participants participated in  activities that acquaint them with cross-culture management, and how successful societies are planned by using example such as the Rwandan genocide, south African Apartheid and the conditions that made the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland possible. The  participants attended workshops that gave them knowledge of different pathways in building peaceful societies, and held sessions that challenged them to think whether these examples could be used as a model when thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

EMIS students and YOCOPAS participants researching about countries that moved from ecosystems of war to ecosystems of peace.

One of the highlights of the weekend for most participants was a lecture by Itai Anghel, an Internationally accredited journalist and documentary filmmaker who covers conflict zones around the world. In His lecture he mainly concentrated on the Ecosystems of war and what are the challenges during the process to an Ecosystem of peace using the DR Congo and the Kurdish women fighting in the Syrian civil war as case studies.  According to one participant, “ YOCOPAS gave me a broad perspective on the state of the world and how as humans we are all striving for the same principles of peace, equity and equality.”

EMIS students and YOCOPAS participants preparing their ecosystems of peace exhibition

For EMIS, hosting an event such as YOCOPAS is a way for to extend the school’s mission statement of making education a force for peace and sustainability in the middle east and ensure that the life changing experiences that our students have passes on across other students who otherwise would not have the opportunity to experience them. For our school YOCOPAS is an expansion of our vision to create sustainable peace in the middle east.

EMIS students socializing with YOCOPAS participants