20 Policy Brief No. 93 Toda Peace Institute The Peace Factory is a social online movement that connects people over the Middle East. It started with an Israeli graphic designer posting a message on Facebook saying “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We love you.” People could upload their photos with this message to Facebook. It caught on. Then Iranians began sending back messages to Israelis. And these became colorful graphic posters as well. These simple messages became a dialogue, with Israelis and Iranians who had never met each other sending messages to each other over social media platforms. The digital campaign spread to other countries in turmoil, such as Lebanon-Israel and US-Iran. The project translated to extended social media dialogue in some cases. And the graphic images were taken off social media and reposted on buses in Israel.82 Soliya brings together post-secondary youth in small, diverse groups for meaningful crosscultural experience through digitally facilitated dialogue. Soliya’s website describes its work as combining “best practices for constructive dialogue with innovative new media technology to shift the way societies resolve their differences from a confrontational and coercive approach to one defined by cooperation and compassion.” Soliya’s online student exchange programme, Exchange 2.0, pairs high school and college students from different regions for cultural exchange, learning cooperation, empathy, and compassion. 83 PeaceDirect’s Platform4Dialogue offers peacebuilders working in different countries a way to communicate and support each other with technology that is built for dialogue and exchange across cultures. Platform4Dialogue encourages, enables, and supports inclusive online dialogue for practitioners, professionals, and peacebuilders on a range of issues.84 15. Digital Peace Education through Gaming Peace education has been a key element of sustainable peacebuilding. Teaching communication, problem-solving and other peacebuilding skills can be done in a traditional classroom. Video games are an opportunity to teach these skills through interactive methods that offer opportunities to try out new skills and ideas and gain a sense of empowerment. The game development community has created a variety of new “empathy games” where players must cooperate and negotiate with others to save civilians in times of war or achieve solutions that address human needs. 85 In 2014, the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development launched an international Gaming Challenge. They received hundreds of proposals for video games to educate players on issues of peace and sustainable development. 86 Games for Peace brings Palestinian and Jewish kids together to play “Play2Talk Minecraft World” with each other once a week in school. Kids play on mixed For more information on Peace Factory see their website at https://thepeacefactory.org/ted-talk-pf-on-theroad/ 83 For more information on Soliya see their website at https://www.soliya.net 84 For more information on PeaceDirect’s Platform4Dialogue, see their website at https://www.platform4dialogue.org/en/ 85 Yoko Mochizuki and Gauri Khanduja. “Gaming for Peace: Onling gaming to promote peace & sustainable development.” UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, n/d. 86 Anamika Gupta. “Beyond the zombie apocalypse: Video Games For Peace And Sustainability.” UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, n/d. 82