A Book, About Peace Education

I got the idea of writing a book when I finished my Masters Education in Human Rights and Peace Education at Universidad Nacional in San José, Costa Rica, 2006. I felt that I wanted to share my knowledge about culture of peace, and peace education with more people. I wanted to challenge the common opinion of what peace is, and inspire people to critically examine the society in which we live.

At the time I didn’t know that it all would end up in a book called Mosquito Tactics or that it were to be published through the organisation CISV Sweden. But the fact that it turned out the way it did is something that I am very happy about, and proud of today. I hope that it will become useful to you, and that you keep it and re-use it when you need inspiration.

Mosquito Tactics is created by a large international editorial team, and it’s inspired from my Master Thesis. Within this editorial team we have shared ideas, knowledge, thoughts and experiences. We have been working intensively from different parts of the world to make this book a reality. We met a couple of times in Stockholm and Landskrona in Sweden, but most of the work has been carried out, with lots of commitment and goal directed work, through conversations over the phone, chat and e-mail. Our editorial team consists of committed members of CISV, but also a hired journalist, a translator, an illustrator, a printer and a photographer.

The book is divided into four parts. To start with, we present a number of concepts. Later in the book we show how you can use them in different projects and activities. You’ll find the main text of Mosquito Tactics on the white pages. On the blue pages we present four people that we feel are important contributors of knowledge since they have played an important role for peace education and culture of peace globally. The yellow sections has activities taken from, amongst others, CISV’s activities. The black pages are an introduction to different peace education projects. Lastly, in the orange pages of the book, we describe in short how CISV works for peace.

We have chosen to leave some pages in the book completely blank. We hope you’ll write and contribute to these pages. That is really the main goal of Mosquito Tactics – to get more people committed and interested in creating sustainable peace.

/ Rodolfo Zúñiga, Vice President, CISV Sweden and
Project Manager, Mosquito Tactics

Sweden, July 2009