Workshop: Healthy Conflict & Constructive Dialogue - Educators' Guide to Depolarisation

Date:  Tuesday 18 February 10.30 am - 4pm, Wednesday 19 February 10.00 am - 3pm

Location: Carmelite Community Centre, 56 Aungier St, Dublin, D02 R598



This 2-part training workshop is being provided by IDEA to support educators in practically addressing and successfully engaging with polarising views and topics when carrying out GCE/DE programmes and activities.


IDEA has invited Tvrtko Pater a trainer from HERMES, Croatia to introduce participants to a guide developed by the DARE Project ('Depolarisation Activism for Resilient Europe'). The guide is a practical toolkit for educators engaging with learners on all issues related to Global Citizenship Education and aims to support educators to confidently deal with polarising views and controversial topics. The guide contains both a theoretical section which uncovers the psychology and sociology of polarisation in society, and is followed by a vast number of exercises and  skill-building activities that seek to empower individuals to seek out, engage with and enter into dialogue with people whose views (radically) differ from their own on questions of identity, belonging, discrimination, globalization, and power inequalities. Over the course of two full days, the trainer Tvrtko Pater, will run you through the toolkit step by step, using practical examples of methodologies and approaches, and support you in bringing them to your own educational context and practice.


The DARE project is a strategic partnership between five civil society organisations from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Serbia and Sweden. It was created to inspire a critical learning space and youth-led and action-oriented dialogue about various contemporary challenges such as polarisation, radicalisation, mental health, human rights violations. The method’s theoretical background is inspired by and rooted in Narrative Therapy, Positive Youth Development, Non-Violent Communication approaches, Critical Pedagogy, Conflict Transformation and Bohmian Dialogue.


Please note that there is a fee to attend this event.

Fees for members of IDEA is €50

Fees for non-members of IDEA is €100.00.

Fee for unwaged (refugees, asylum seekers, students, others) is €3.00 - this can be paid in person. 


Registration has now closed. Please email anya@ideaonline.ie to be added to the waiting list.


The training takes place in person in Dublin over two full days. Places are limited and priority will be given to participants who can attend in full for both days.


A print-out copy of the guide will be distributed on the day, please let us know in the comment box as you register if  you do not desire a hardcopy. 


Image Credit: Jenkin Shen

Attribution: Pexels.com



Biographies


Tvrtko Noa Pater is a Croatian educator who works in the fields of Holocaust education, rhetoric, facing history and depolarization. He has over 20 years of teaching experience working in various contexts, some examples of his previous work are: a trainer at the Model International Criminal Court (MICC) educational programme, a Peer Guide trainer for the “Anne Frank - A History for Today” travelling exhibition and a British Parliamentary debate trainer. Tvrtko was also the lead trainer during the “DARE - Depolarisation Activism for Resilient Europe” project. 



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September 26, 2025
Date: Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm Location: Online via Zoom IDEA is thrilled to invite members to the online launch of our new “Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education” on Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm, Online via Zoom. During this session, we will present the model, share insights into the process behind its development, and explore how it will be used to strengthen impact across the sector. We will also introduce a new tool in progress, an interactive data visualisation map designed to showcase our collective impact as a network. For many years, IDEA and its members have been grappling with the concept of impact in Development Education/Global Citizenship Education (GCE). As GCE practitioners, tracking impact helps us to identify how, where and with whom our work is creating positive change, as well as investigating areas in which our impact could be stronger. Furthermore, we can also benefit from examining the collective impact of GCE carried out by the wide-ranging work of IDEA members, and from exploring how these impacts contribute to the major social changes to which the GCE community aspires. Driven therefore by the need to understand how projects and programmes are collectively “making a difference” in IDEA we looked at models that could help us visualise and capture GCE “impact networks”. We formulated our vision of impact and then a theory of how we expect this desired impact to be achieved to allow us to map our activities and collect data to corroborate that theory. This Theory of Impact model is how we hope to illustrate this complex GCE impact network. Building on work done by IDEA over many years including building sectoral capacity in using Results Frameworks for GCE, our Quality & Impact working group, engagement with Irish Aid on their Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), and the successful roll-out of a Code of Good Practice for DE/GCE, this Theory of Impact represent the next stage of our effort to ‘develop a consistent approach to measuring impact among the sector’. We are therefore thrilled to invite you to the presentation of our ‘Theory of Impact for GCE’. At this online presentation, we will tell you about the process that led to the creation of this model, how it will be used and what we hope it could bring to the sector. We will also touch on a new tool being developed based on the model, which should allow the creation of an interactive data visualisation map of our collective impact as a network. Join us as we launch into this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Join us as we begin this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Register below!