“Raising Peace: Why I Love the International Children’s Peace Network (ICPN*)”

President Nila
Nov 5
4 min read

By Balananthini Balasubramaniam (@SmallDrops)

Abstract

This article explores the philosophical, pedagogical, and strategic significance of the International Children’s Peace Network (ICPN) in cultivating globally conscious, ethically resilient, and socially engaged children. Moving beyond conventional paradigms that view children merely as future citizens, it frames children as active moral agents and peacebuilders. Through a synthesis of global justice theory, peace education, and parenting ethics, this piece proposes a framework for raising children not only as individuals but as researchers, leaders, and community-minded architects of the present and future.

I. Why the International Children’s Peace Network (ICPN) Is Vital

The International Children's Peace Network (ICPN) is not a supplementary actor in the global ecosystem of diplomacy and education—it is foundational. It addresses what peace theorist John Paul Lederach describes as the “moral imagination”: the ability to envision alternative futures and act toward them with empathy and courage. ICPN does precisely this by embedding peace into the emotional and intellectual formation of children.

1. Peace Begins in the Imagination of the Young

Children are not passive vessels to be filled but dynamic moral subjects. Teaching peace early rewires social cognition, replacing narratives of power and exclusion with empathy and cooperation. According to UNICEF’s 2022 Global Child Development report, early exposure to peace education reduces long-term risk of violence, both interpersonally and systemically.

2. Transnational Literacy and Global Belonging

ICPN dismantles artificial divisions by creating opportunities for cross-cultural connection. Through storytelling, youth dialogue, and global exchange, children learn not only about the world—but learn to belong within it as ethical participants.

3. Childhood as a Site of Agency, Not Just Innocence

Children are often framed in political discourse as needing protection—but rarely as leaders. ICPN reverses that lens. By giving children platforms to speak on climate justice, war, poverty, and education, it nurtures their capacity to participate in democratic life as thinkers and actors.

4. Peace as Preventative Infrastructure

In a world where international policy often responds reactively to violence, ICPN represents a preventative model—one that transforms the roots of conflict by reshaping how children relate to power, identity, and community.

II. What Does ICPN Do?

ICPN operates across multiple strategic dimensions:

Peace Curriculum Development: Integrating nonviolent communication, ethical reasoning, and emotional resilience into formal and informal education.

Youth Ambassador Programme: Identifying and mentoring children to become spokespersons for justice, climate action, and reconciliation.

International Dialogues and Exchanges: Facilitating peer-to-peer learning across borders, instilling intercultural respect and cooperative problem-solving.

Advocacy and Policy Influence: Enabling children to engage with local councils, the UN, and humanitarian forums on issues directly affecting their lives.

Trauma Healing in Post-Conflict Zones: Offering psychosocial support, art therapy, and story-sharing for children affected by war and displacement.

III. What Is a Youth Ambassador?

A Youth Ambassador is a moral and civic agent-in-training—a child or adolescent entrusted with representing the values of justice, peace, and human dignity within their peer group and broader community.

Youth ambassadors:

Act as intergenerational translators, making complex global issues accessible to other young people

Serve as advocates in international policy forums (e.g., UNCRC, COP summits)

Organise community campaigns, artistic projects, and public events

Embody values of nonviolence, inclusion, and democratic participation

Rather than merely symbolic, their role affirms what Hannah Arendt once called “the right to have rights”—even for those not yet of voting age.

IV. Raising Children as Leaders and Researchers

The cultivation of leadership is not a matter of charisma or authority—it is, fundamentally, an epistemological shift in how children are taught to see, question, and relate to the world.

Core Strategies:

1. Encourage Epistemic Curiosity

Children should be taught to ask why, not just how. Inquiry must be framed as an act of justice.

2. Mentorship & Moral Imagination

Surround them with adults who lead with compassion, not control. The quality of questions a child hears determines the quality of their thinking.

3. Practice-Based Leadership

Allow children to lead small initiatives—climate clubs, peer mediation, storytelling workshops. Let them fail, reflect, and try again.

4. Expose Them to Complexity, Not Simplification

Teach them to read not just books, but power structures. Show them how race, class, and history shape the world—and how to intervene with humility and courage.

5. Support Original Thought

Encourage writing, art, research projects. Let them be creators, not merely consumers.

V. Parenting as Peacebuilding

Parenting, when seen through a justice-oriented lens, is a radical political act. It is the construction of a moral being, one who holds both self-worth and communal accountability.

The Responsibilities of Peace-Oriented Parenting:

Emotional Security: Providing a home where a child can safely express vulnerability

Ethical Formation: Teaching not obedience, but discernment and responsibility

Social Awareness: Discussing injustice, inequality, and solidarity in age-appropriate ways

Freedom and Boundaries: Holding space for both discipline and autonomy

Modeling: Children become not who we tell them to be—but who we are when no one is watching

VI. How to Raise a Society-Oriented Child

A society-oriented child is one whose moral compass includes strangers, ecosystems, and unborn generations.

Key Practices:

Take them to community actions: food drives, protests, reforestation efforts

Read stories from multiple cultures and resistance movements

Create rituals of giving and gratitude in daily life

Introduce them to real-world changemakers—activists, scientists, survivors

Ask: “What would you do if you had the power to change this?”

VII. Peace Education by Age: A Strategic Pedagogical Framework

Age Key Focus Methods

2–5 Empathy, kindness Play, stories, shared rituals

6–10 Justice, honesty Group tasks, moral discussion

11–13 Responsibility, teamwork Clubs, debates, peer mentoring

14–18 Research, action, leadership Projects, community service, internships

The aim is not simply content delivery—but identity formation. Every stage must honour the child’s growing agency.

✨ Final Message: Why I Love ICPN

I love the International Children’s Peace Network not just because it gives children a voice—but because it reminds us that they have always had one.

It is not enough to say children are the future. The future is not a guarantee—it is a responsibility. Children are already shaping the world with every question they ask, every injustice they name, every hand they extend in peace.

To love ICPN is to believe in:

Peace as pedagogy

Leadership as service

Parenting as ethical formation

Children as co-creators of justice

Let us begin where history begins: in childhood.

Let us teach peace not as a subject, but as a way of life.