Knowledge Channel turns over new Salam videos to DepEd

Knowledge Channel turns over new Salam videos to DepEd

KNOWLEDGE Channel Foundation Inc. (KCFI) continues its peace building advocacy by producing three new video episodes of “Salam,” peace education modules incorporated into Knowledge Channel's Makabayan/Values curriculum slot in public elementary schools.

Knowledge Channel co-produced these modules with funding assistance from the GOP/United Nations ACT for Peace Programme. The Department of Education's Office of Mindanao affairs supervised the episodes' content.

Leading the turnover at the OPAPP headquarters in Ortigas were KCFI president and executive director Rina Lopez Bautista, OPAPP secretary Hermogenes Esperon, Sec. Jesus Dureza and DepEd Sec. Jesli Lapus. Also present were ACT4Peace program manager Diosita Andot, Knowledge Channel Foundation Trustee Fe Hidalgo and NCCA Chairperson Cecille Alvarez.

“Salam” uses a moving reality-based drama format to deliver its message of peace to Filipino grade school students. In the new 20-minute episodes, titled “Bakwit,” “Kanduri” and “Karapatan,” nongovernment organization (NGO)/peace building sector workers share their memories of their childhood in Mindanao and why they are dedicating their lives to building peace.

“Salam” aims to help students develop attitudes and skills conducive to peace and to understand the process that leads to harmony or conflict and learn the different ways of resolving conflicts.

KCFI launched “Salam (Arabic for “peace”)” in 2006 in response to Executive Order No. 570, which “institutionalized peace education in basic education and teacher education” in public schools. In 2007, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the first 10 episodes of “Salam” as part of a three-year project with KFCI, called TV Education for the Advancement of Muslim Mindanao (TEAM-Mindanao).

The program is set in Muslim Mindanao, but the lessons to be learned are applicable to all children, whether they are in rural or urban settings throughout the Philippines. Knowledge Channel airs “Salam” at least 10 times a year, reaching around six million home viewers and 2.9M students from Batanes to Tawi Tawi.

In her opening remarks, Rina Lopez Bautista observed that "the timing of the event could not have been more perfect; what with peace becoming more imminent by the day in Mindanao and the ARMM forthcoming elections making daily headlines.