Nonviolent Debate Educational Curriculum

Aims of the tool

The Nonviolent Debate Educational Curriculum aims to support youth workers, educators and trainers in creating inclusive and participatory spaces where young people can engage with controversial issues, different perspectives and conflict in a constructive and nonviolent way.
More specifically, the tool aims to:
- strengthen young people’s capacity for active listening, dialogue and constructive disagreement;
- develop awareness of the values, assumptions and experiences that influence individual opinions and positions;
- encourage young people to recognise the complexity of controversial issues and move beyond simplified “for or against” positions;
- strengthen critical thinking and self-reflection, including the ability to question one’s own beliefs and assumptions;
- develop resilience to polarisation, manipulation and divisive narratives in public discourse;
- support meaningful youth participation and democratic engagement;
- provide youth workers and educators with practical methods for facilitating difficult conversations and conflicts while maintaining respect, inclusion and nonviolence.

Description of the tool

The Nonviolent Debate Educational Curriculum is a practical educational resource developed within the project "Participation Needs Nonviolent Debate for Conflict Transformation", funded by the Erasmus+ programme – Cooperation Partnerships in Youth (KA220-YOU) and coordinated by the Sereno Regis Study Centre. The project has brought together five organisations working with young people and communities in very different contexts: Italy, Ukraine, Kosovo, Türkiye and Poland.
The collaboration arose from the convergence of experiences in peace education, human rights education, youth participation and non-formal education, with a particular focus on contexts affected by war, violence and severe polarisation.
The project combined research, training and field-based experimentation: from analysing the needs of young people and youth workers to international training sessions, right through to the implementation of local activities in the partner countries. The aim was to develop an educational model capable of supporting young people’s civic participation and providing practitioners with tools to address controversial issues and conflict situations in a constructive and non-violent manner.
The result of this process is the Nonviolent Debate Educational Curriculum, a new tool aimed at youth workers, educators, trainers and, more generally, anyone who works with young people and wishes to create more inclusive and participatory spaces for dialogue.
The Curriculum does not simply propose a new technique for organising a debate. At its heart lie a number of fundamental skills: active listening, recognising the complexity of opinions, reflecting on the values that shape our positions, questioning one’s own beliefs, and countering polarisation and manipulation in public discourse.
The aim is to create a space in which discussion can become an educational experience: not an arena where the person who argues best prevails, but an opportunity to understand others, explore differences and imagine new possibilities together.
The curriculum combines principles and methods from peace education, human rights education, youth participation and non-formal education. The activities support facilitators in creating spaces where disagreement can be expressed without reproducing hostility, exclusion or polarisation.
The Curriculum can be used as a complete educational programme or as a collection of adaptable activities. Youth workers and educators can select and modify activities depending on the needs of their groups, learning objectives, available time and local context. It is particularly relevant when working with controversial or sensitive topics and in contexts affected by conflict, violence, social division or polarisation.
For facilitators, the Curriculum also provides an opportunity to strengthen competences in designing and facilitating inclusive debates, managing controversial discussions, supporting participation, and creating conditions in which different voices can be heard safely and respectfully.
Rather than offering a rigid methodology, the Curriculum invites experimentation and adaptation. Its underlying principle is that nonviolence concerns not only how we respond to conflict, but also how we create the conditions in which conflict and disagreement can be addressed together.
If you work with young people, are involved in peace education, focus on participation, or are simply looking for new ways to tackle difficult conversations, we invite you to explore the Nonviolent Debate Curriculum.
Because learning to debate without waging war does not mean avoiding conflict. It means learning to transform it.

The toolkit is available on the project web-site:
https://serenoregis.org/2026/08/24/un-progetto-europeo-per-imparare-a-stare-nel-conflitto-a-european-project-on-learning-to-navigate-conflict/

Note: Clicking this link takes you to an independent third-party site outside of SALTO TC&RC’s control.