Schools for the Future just finished the second year of the project Reading for the Future in El Salvador. The project was started in January 2010. The general objective of the project is to promote justice, de-mocracy and peace through development and encourage-ment of self-reflection among children in high-risk areas prone to violence.

Encouraging reading habits and reading as a source of pleasure and reflection, the project aims to promote conflict resolution and long-term thinking skills, leading to a more peaceful coexistence among El Salvador’s citizens.

The target group is currently children aged 11-13 years, in urban and rural areas of El Salvador. The project is carried out in three separate public school settings; the urban schools Centro Escolar Margarita Durán and Centro Escolar Refugio de la Paz in Santa Tecla, and rural Centro Escolar Caserío El Olimpo in Apopa.

The project themes are democracy and children's rights, peaceful conflict resolution, intercultural understanding, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

Main objectives of the project

• Promote self-reflection
• Encourage long-term thinking
• Encourage dreams and ambitions for the future
• Develop sustainable social networks and competence among Swedish and Salvadoran students, school personnel and members of the civil society through mutual knowledge exchange

Activities