Television is a means of eliminating violence in everyday life
(Original)

Elnara Mehdiyeva
(Age 19, Azerbaijan)
Western University, Azerbaijan

Nowadays media, information and communication technologies play an important role in uniting people coming from diverse parts of the world, people of different nationalities speaking different languages, keeping different traditions and customs. If in the past it took a great period of time to convey news internationally, at present we can share news with our friends living in the most remote parts of the earth without leaving home, just sitting at the computer and drinking a cup of coffee with biscuits.

It is of great importance to realize for every person that facilities that we have should be implemented to make some positive advantages in the world community. This may sound rather strange for a teenager for whom the whole world is limited to the school and neighborhood environment and who does not regard himself as a crusader willing to do reforming. In my opinion, we all and each of us are able to make our contribution in the process of peace-building world- wide.

In the school from which I graduated we conducted a project called Anti-Bullying which was the first project I took part in, and I was very much eager to succeed in it and share success with other participants. The main obstacle that our team encountered was the title of the project itself as many students, parents, and other people were convinced that school environment was rather peaceful with no violence. However, constant cases of bullying, teasing and mocking frequently happened there. I think that it is mainly caused by the mentality of our people who believe that violence is something connected with crime, murder, etc and do not take into account numerous cases of emotional abuse  and bullying, especially in secondary school. Such an attitude is wrong because when people do not notice initial forms of violence, they hardly pay attention to their growing into the most violent forms of human behavior. But how can people be aware of current problems in their neighborhood, how can they get closer to the problems that exist in their lives but which people are not eager to notice. In the project we came to the conclusion that the best way is television as the majority of people lack free time and the only way to get information about the current situation in the country and overseas is by watching television. In our project we worked with local volunteers who represented various schools and at the end of each week they made a report on the accomplished work by organizing work with students, making innovations in schools.  As the project was represented as a TV show it involved the participation of judges who made the competition very strict and each week the weakest competitor left the show.  It attracted a lot of attention in the city, and the show was watched by both parents and their children which allowed them to regard the existing problems together.  In my country it was only the first step made on the improvement of social relationships, and there is a great need to make other contributions in this field.

I think that in the nearest future it is important to organize forum theatres in local schools which will be broadcast across the country. Forum theatre is such a social innovation where audience watches the performance based on complicated life situations (problems with violence in our case) usually with an unhappy end. Then, the performance is re-played and the audience is invited for participation by taking an active part in it or giving the actors a piece of advice, encouraging them, etc. Such practice allows people to enjoy participating in a challenging event, offers a great variety of approaches to solving current problems in the society, establishes network among participants and makes problem-solving process such fun.  Watching such theatre performances people will be able to understand the nature of many violent acts, share problems with others, to be sympathetic to people and get interested in anti-bullying campaigns.

Television is an essential factor in this respect as it will allow people to get information about the important contribution of young generation into the process of building peaceful environment, share experience and ideas, get acquainted with existing problems and take their own measures on the elimination of violence in the country. Being easy accessible, cheap and most enjoyable means of transforming information, I believe television will be the most important mechanism of building peaceful environment.