HypING up the peace force!
Vision
To empower & unite peace work.
Mission
Use research, media, technology and creative collaboration to unite and support peace.
CURRENT Objective
Help untangle, expose and end UK university ties to the global arms trade.
Principles & Values
dED have a zero tolerance policy for violence.
Transparency & accountability are tools of progression.
Actions that affect the greater public need to be accounted for and used to step forward.
No Blaming.
Those with a greater influence to impact people and the planet should be held accountable when in breach of their obligations. To move forward we must acknowledge that the system we live in often encourages individual wrongdoing, therefore rather than individual blame we must first look at the greater system to make change.
Cooperation over competition.
Yeah yeah we know competition is a useful capitalist tool for pushing product quality, and while we strive for quality, price competition often undermines sustainable developments. That is why we believe mission focused collaboration can make organisations more resourceful, efficient and essentially save organisations money.
Learn from history
Too many times history has repeated itself. The world now needs to update our education, systems and be ready to continuing developing for improvement. We are open to admit our mistakes and use them to improve...we are all human after all.
We are Global Citizens.
We all benefit from a globalised economy. We communicate and share with people from all stretches of the world everyday with ease. We are all human beings and we must all be equal.
Why Demilitarise Education?
EDUCATION IS KEY.
INTRODUCING dED_UCATION the channel that aims to invite people to learn the facts behind peace and militarism aiming to empower social development.
‘Militarisation is the process by which a society organises itself for military conflict and violence.’
The dED movement was born from student activism and involvement in numerous campaigns to stop universities from being involved in various aspects of the global arms trade. As former students of University of Manchester, we found ourselves feeling betrayed by the University as they try to teach us principles of sustainability while contributing millions of pounds and student labour to the arms trade, one of the world’s deadliest industries.
This confirmed our suspicions of how deeply militarism is embedded throughout our education and culture. For instance, Michael Gove has spent over 11 mil to organise school campaigns around the UK promoting the benefits of joining the armed forces. This is apparent at universities, where engineering students are often pushed towards accepting graduate schemes in the defence industry. Due to their wealthy connections, companies in this industry make these students offers they cannot refuse.
dED_UCATION want to present two levels of education: the first being our community on the key concepts of militarism in order to provide them with the brain ammunition they need for the global fight for peace; and the second we want to offer universities the People’s Plan for Divestment which will show them a new perspective on how to move away from militarism and focus on global impact. But we knew we couldn’t do it alone, and thus was born the idea of a research collective, that takes part in research, and creates media to educate and support each other in the global fight for peace.
UK education institutions are places where revolutionary ideas, people and technology can grow and better the world...and this should should not include the perpetuation of violence.
We want the UK to continue providing one of the highest standards of education world wide but we want that to be based on principles of equality & justice.
Core research topics/data collection:
- University involvement in arms trade
- Peace groups methods of demilitarisation
- Current climate of peace
dED believe there are better ways nations can be spending their money to ensure safety for their citizens rather than planning for conflict. That is why we are on a mission to support and unite groups working towards peace and demilitarisation so we can and encourage conversation around these topics and work together to find progressive solutions.