![](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65cc95ae14cce67e88519084/264ba3e7-a4c1-4e7b-ad8d-a24abdd950a0/PEACE+Main.jpg)
PEACE
BUILDING
Puppets allow for dynamic insights into empathy, tolerance, perspective, and communication skills. Our films gently bring the theme of conflict into the room through stories set some time and somewhere, and then participants engage in activities for deeper exploration of themes such as:
• The nature of conflict
• Difference and similarity
• The need to belong
• Perspective
• Empathy
• Common ground
• The power of good communication skills
• Children and peace and conflict
No Strings has two programmes exploring peace-building issues: Red Top, Blue Top, for children and young people affected by conflict in the Middle East, and The Two Gardens,
which has a more Eastern look.
RED TOP, BLUE TOP: CLIP
Peace Building, Middle East
The Red Tops and Blue Tops live side by side in the same town with everything in common apart from one thing: one wears their hats with the blue part on top, the other, the red part. Their animosity goes back so long that no-one can remember why they fell out - but they did. And neither side can forget, passing on hatred and seeds for conflict to each new generation until a stranger arrives, with a magical pair
of shoes.
The film, created for children affected by war in the Middle East, is full of symbols, with the shoes naturally representing perspective. Its ultimate aim is a shift in attitudes towards hope for a peaceful co-existence - more immediately, it opens a space for discussion to children displaced by conflict who are living among those who are different.
THE TWO GARDENS: CLIP
Peace Building, South East Asia
Badu, our friend from the Tales of Disasters series, is tortured by thoughts in his head, thoughts about the new guy, the stranger from across the bay, the one his boss has employed to tend the garden next to his, and which for some strange reason is producing much better crops. He must be stealing his seedlings! Badu must protect himself! The village must protect itself!!
Rumours circulate and before we know it, the stranger's plot is set alight. But the fire spreads and it falls on the stranger himself to put it out - he has been fixing the villagers' well all this time. Watching all this from their branch in a tree, the Little Girl and her Squirrel friend have a perspective that seems to elude the adults.
Laida is an interfaith community worker in Mindanao, a Filipino island with a long history of violence. “Even though we might have peace talks, there’s a constant fear they will break down and conflict will resume,” she says. “Having this film here is so important. It helps introduce concepts of conflict and peace in a way that makes sense within the day-to-day life of children, and we visit schools of both faiths in the region. We’re also using it as a way to begin discussion with adults – it’s surprised us how useful it has been.”