The concept of teaching values and skills is at the heart of UNODC's work in building a culture of lawfulness from an early age. By working with young minds, the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative is busy promoting this ideal at the primary level, reaching out to children between the ages of six and 12 through a series of fun, yet informative, educational tools.
At the core of the success of this work is the understanding that the development of meaningful tools will depend on the invaluable opinions of both children and teachers alike. With this in mind, December saw two important events in Mexico City, which allowed children, educators and relevant stakeholders to give their thoughts on the design of two key educational items currently being developed under E4J.
UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative held its third hackathon (or coding challenge) in Indonesia, through its Country Office in Jakarta. The event - #Hack4Justice - saw some 30 secondary school students between the ages of 13 and 18 gather in Jakarta, Indonesia to battle it out at the keyboard and show off their ideas and talent in developing educational games focussing on justice and rule of law issues.
Organized in partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of Education, the hackathon feeds into the development of a series of interactive tools to help students learn about these issues as part of the organization's Global Programme for the implementation of the Doha Declaration. With secondary school students as the ultimate consumers of the final games, the hackathons present an ideal opportunity to involve them right from the start - and to gauge the approaches youth would take to teach justice values among their peers.
At a major United Nations anti-corruption conference, UNODC unveiled a new cartoon campaign to promote ethics and values teaching to primary school children. Based on an animated series, The Zorbs, the campaign tells of an imaginary planet and its inhabitants who overcome a range of challenges thanks to core values and skills as promoted under the organization's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, which is a key component of the Global Programme, funded by the State of Qatar.
The series has been designed as a fun yet informative education tool, and will comprise a set of animated videos, complemented by an online interactive Comic Creator that encourages children to build meaningful stories in an engaging and creative way.
Following on from UNODC's successful hackathon (or coding challenge) in South Africa in July, a second #Hack4Justice event was held in Bolivia in early-September. Organized in partnership with the Higher University of San Andrés, some 36 secondary school students showed off their ideas and compete to develop educational games focussing on justice and rule of law issues.
An all-girls team, Cultura Marraqueta, took first place with their idea for a game called 'Utopia'. In this, players move within a fictitious world where different villages are dominated by monsters who represent specific crime types. The objective is for players to navigate around these villages and complete challenges which help the monsters assume human forms and abandon criminal activities.
This past week, UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative held its first ever hackathon (or coding challenge) in South Africa. The event - #Hack4Justice - saw some 34 secondary school students between the ages of 13 and 18 gather in Johannesburg, South Africa to battle it out at the keyboard and show off their ideas and talent in developing educational games focussing on justice and rule of law issues. The hackathon feeds into the development of a series of interactive tools to help students learn about these issues as part of the organization's Doha Declaration Global Programme.
