Category: Applied ICD

Peace by Prompt

Applied ICD

Peace by Prompt, by Lena Slachmuijlder, and published in the Tech and Social Cohesion substack, provides a fascinating description of two efforts to build AI tools to facilitate mediation and encourage peacebuilding.

Slachmuijlder focuses on two initiatives:

Akord AI and the peace accord library

“Developed by Conflict Dynamics International, Akord AI is a chatbot designed to support Sudanese peacebuilders, civil society actors, diplomats, and policy influencers. Instead of scraping the internet, it draws exclusively from a curated library of more than 3,000 resources—peace agreements, constitutional texts, case studies on women’s inclusion, and strategies from both global and local sources, in English and Modern Standard Arabic. Because Akord only draws on its curated library, it has so far avoided the hallucinations common in mainstream chatbots.”

Kinshasa’s AI Analyst

“In Kinshasa, a different experiment is unfolding. “Cocorico,” an AI chatbot developed by Kinshasa Television, isn’t just helping in the newsroom—it’s become an on-air analyst. It has weighed in on issues from the DRC–Rwanda peace talks to UN expert reports, government reshuffles, and legal cases.”

The Science Behind the Human Library (Denmark)

Applied ICD

The Science Behind the Human Library’s Methodology, Human Library Organization, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Human Library creates a safe space for dialogue where topics are discussed openly between human “books” and their readers. The human books are volunteers with personal experience with a topic. Here’s a brief introduction.

Recently researchers at the University of Glasgow investigated the impacts of social interaction with stigmatized people in the learning space provided by the Human Library. The study, called Reducing stigma and discrimination: A case study of a ‘Human Library’ Reading event, includes extensive literature review where three types of strategies to dismantle stereotypes are introduced: educational, interpersonal and activism.

By employing the educational strategy, one attempts to reduce stigma by presenting facts. However, such an approach appeals mainly to the intellect and appears to be efficient when applied on adolescents. When working with adults, a more efficient strategy to dismantle stigma seems to be direct interpersonal contact with representatives of the stigmatized groups. This approach is at the center of the methodology used in the Human Library.

Organizing events to provide safe space for open discussions, this format creates learning experiences remembered for the rest of one’s life. At the Human Library, it is the combination of experience and new knowledge that give this approach such an impact.

For more information about the entire movement, see here. Over the last 24 years, the Human Library has hosted events virtually and in libraries, museums, festivals, conferences, schools, universities and for the private sector, in over 85 countries. They are currently opening libraries in Switzerland, and are looking for volunteers to help.

Dartmouth Dialogue Project: Shared Studios Portal (USA)

Applied ICDShared Studios Portal, Dialogue Project, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA, 28 April-15 May 2025.

“The Dialogue Project is excited to host a Shared Studios Portal on campus beginning April 28, 2025. Located in the Kemeny Courtyard behind Baker-Berry Library, the Dartmouth Portal features an immersive room, one wall of which is a screen that connects you to people in other portals around the world.

In the spirit of the Dialogue Project’s commitment to respectful discussion across differences, the Dartmouth Portal will enable students, staff, and faculty to engage with communities in nearly 20 countries to challenge our perspectives, sharpen intercultural communication skills, and facilitate difficult conversations. Additionally, students enrolled in Speech at Dartmouth classes will present speeches to diverse audiences, hone rhetorical skills, and make meaningful connections.

Rooted in storytelling and the expertise of lived experience, portal connections will allow students to connect with artists, activists, teachers, professionals, and fellow students from across the African continent, Latin and South America, the Middle East, and beyond!”

Picasso in Dialogue (Hong Kong)

Applied ICDPicasso for Asia: A Conversation, Hong Kong Jockey Club Series, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, 15 March-13 July 2025.

…the exhibition poses an interpretative framework for examining the works of the twentieth-century European master in relation to contemporary Asian and Asian-diasporic artists active today and in the recent past.

M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, proudly presents The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation. The Special Exhibition is a rich intercultural and intergenerational dialogue between more than sixty masterpieces by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) from the Musée national Picasso-Paris, which holds the largest collection of works by Picasso in the world, and around 130 works by thirty Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections, and select loans from a museum, a foundation, and private collections. Co-organised by M+ and MnPP, this exhibition is a significant milestone in which masterpieces from MnPP are being shown alongside works from a museum collection in Asia for the first time. It is also the first major showcase of Picasso’s works in Hong Kong in over a decade, offering an unprecedented and unique perspective on the artist’s wide-reaching influence and what it means to be an artist in our time.

This Special Exhibition introduces four artist archetypes that encapsulate why Picasso is considered the quintessential twentieth-century artist and how the legacy of his art and life continues to influence contemporary artists as well as the public to this day. The four archetypes also serve as the sections of the exhibition and as powerful paradigms to which the contemporary Asian artists in the exhibition respond in their diverse, individualistic practices. The four are: the genius, the outsider, the magician, and the apprentice.

UNESCO: Youth as Researchers (Central Asia)

Applied ICDLaunch of the Youth as Researchers Project in Central Asia, organized by UNESCO Almaty Regional Office, UNESCO Office in Tashkent, International Centre for the Rapprochement of Cultures, and Kazakhstan National Federation of Clubs for UNESCO.

This exciting project empowers young people across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to engage in research on critical themes that impact their communities. Through this initiative, nine youth research groups have been selected to focus on five key topics:

  • Promotion of Science
  • Peace and Intercultural Dialogue
  • Gender Equality
  • Youth Mental Health
  • Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Over several months, these youth groups will undergo comprehensive training in research methodologies, particularly in the social and human sciences. This training will equip them with the necessary tools to develop impactful knowledge products, which will contain recommendations on the selected topics. The findings will be shared with the National Commissions and Permanent Delegations to UNESCO of the participating countries.

The Youth as Researchers (YAR) programme, which is part of a global UNESCO initiative, is designed to empower young people to conduct research that addresses the issues they face. By equipping youth with research skills, YAR fosters evidence-based advocacy, encourages active participation in policy discussions, and strengthens their roles as agents of change in society.

 

Promoting Intercultural Dialogue Onstage (Czech Republic)

Applied ICDToday is the First Day of the Rest of My Life, Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Prague, Czech Republic.

 

Through a theater play, LWF Prague supports the integration of people with a migration background into Czech Society.

“Memories and personal stories are among the few things that refugees and migrants can carry with them wherever they go. The LWF office in Prague, Czech Republic, encouraged people with different cultural backgrounds and locals to share their stories in a theatre play, to connect and foster integration. The first edition premiered in November 2024.

Based on true stories of foreigners and Czechs living in Prague, the play examines the universal challenges of love, friendship, fear, and tough life choices. The amateur actors brought questions from their everyday experience to the play: How can I navigate societal stereotypes about single motherhood while considering what’s best for me and my baby? Will my girlfriend’s mother accept me, or will she always think I’m using marriage for a residence permit? Where can I get help for domestic violence if I don’t speak the local language? Will the authorities trust me, or will I face deportation? These are just some of the real-life situations explored in Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life, a play that premiered at Vinohrady Theater D21 in Prague.”

Vancouver Dialogues (Canada)

Applied ICDVancouver Dialogues: First Nations, Urban Aboriginal, and Immigrant Communities, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

“Stories build community and create understanding. They are the memories and oral histories of peoples who have taken different journeys to create a home in Vancouver. The City of Vancouver Dialogues Project aimed to create cohesive communities by exploring the stories of Vancouver’s First Nations, urban Aboriginal and immigrant communities.”

The book resulting from the 2010-11 project (available online, for free) can serve as a model to other communities for how to get people from different cultural backgrounds talking to one another. At the end of the project, “Overwhelmingly, those who have been involved with the Project have asked for a continued dialogue about the issues which have been raised,” which can only be understood as a marker of success.

A Taste of Harmony (Australia)

Applied ICDA Taste of Harmony, Australia, 17 March-18 April 2025.

 

Food brings people together. It’s something we can all share.

A Taste of Harmony is Australia’s largest celebration of cultural diversity and it was especially created for the workplace (but could easily be adapted to other contexts, such as education). The goal is to use food as a way of bringing people together to share, discover and learn about each other’s cultural heritage.

There are many ways for workplaces to participate in A Taste of Harmony, from encouraging staff to bring in food that reflects their cultural origins to share with their colleagues to more elaborate events. The key is bringing people together and creating a fun, informal way for colleagues to share their cultural heritage through food and discover more about their co-workers.

Broadcasts Foster Dialogue among Refugees and Host Communities (Moldova)

Applied ICD

Broadcasts to foster dialogue and understanding among refugees and host communities, Moldova.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, UNESCO supported broadcasters in neighbouring countries, such as Teleradio-Moldova (TRM), to launch a series of programmes to aid Ukrainian refugees with support from the Government of Japan. Displaced Ukrainian media professionals were included in the broadcasts to better help refugees navigate their new lives in Moldova. Funded by the Government of Japan as an emergency project under the UN’s Regional Refugee Response Plan for the Ukraine Situation, UNESCO supported TRM to produce and broadcast programmes accessible to the displaced Ukrainians to help them settle and rebuild their lives in Moldova.

Daria Russu, host of TV Moldova 1’s 30-minute Ukrainian-language “Weekly” TV-programme, noted the challenge refugees face in accessing credible news in their mother tongue: “Ukrainian refugees have nowhere to get information about Moldova and they have nowhere to get information about the world in general. That is exactly why this project is needed, so they can get verified, truthful and complete information in their native language.”

Over the course of seven months, TRM broadcasted nearly 100 programmes for tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Moldova. These covered a wide range of topics, including health, education, housing and daily life in the host country. More than 200 refugees, national experts and humanitarian actors were interviewed, providing valuable insights and perspectives for the programmes.

A key component of the project was a baseline study on the media habits and information needs of the Ukrainian refugees, commissioned by UNESCO from its long-term partner, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Loreana Sacara, TRM’s Project Coordinator, highlighted that the programmes were designed based on the research’s findings: “The programmes early gathered a wide loyal audience both among the refugees and the local population. They were aired in the Ukrainian language with subtitles or voiceovers in Romanian”.

CosmoKidz Resources (USA)

Applied ICD

CosmoKidz resources, Coordinated Management of Meaning Institute for Personal and Social Evolution, USA.

 

The global problems of today and of the future will require leaders who are able to helpfully engage with others of varying backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives. CosmoKidz is providing the building blocks for this kind of leadership. Helping to build better social worlds, one conversation at a time.

The CosmoKidzTM program consists of sets of conversational activities for adults to use with children and teens to help them develop constructive social and emotional intelligences. The CosmoKidzTM activities fit in with a new move in educational thinking: a shift from training students for cleverness and competition to helping them become fulfilled individuals and active, caring, compassionate people. The conversational activities are developed for different age groups—from children, to tweens and teens—based on something CMMi calls a cosmopolitan sensibility. It’s a different way of looking at how adults relate with children and how we would like them to relate with others. It also helps us focus on important things that most people don’t pay attention to that happens in our communicating with others.

CosmoKidz materials are now available in English, Pashto, Farsi, Norwegian, and Romanian. And there are related materials for CosmoTweenz, CosmoTeenz, and CosmoParents, as well as more general SOAR (Sense what’s around you, Open your hands to help others, Act with kindness, Respect other people) activities.