Accessing Development Education
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Accessing Development Education-This project acknowledges the fact that highly valuable Development Education material has been developed, however it recognises the difficulties of teachers and educators to access the existent material, as well as to apply these recourses to their local or national educational context. More specifically, the project addresses the lack of access to, as well as the need for, Development Education material by teachers, educators, youth trainers and other actors across Europe, and especially in those countries that have joined the EU only recently.
Overall Objective
This project aims at promoting Development Education within the educational sector across Europe, focusing specifically on Lithuania, Cyprus, Scotland and Ireland. Specifically, the project aims to engage educators and schools in Development Education activities and equip them with relevant training and materials, thus making them promoters and multipliers of national campaigns that aim to create awareness about Development and about global interdependencies. This project through its activities in all partner countries will actively engage educators and schools in accessing Development Education. National Advisory Groups of educators will access, gather and review existing educational material on DE. On an international level they will exchange experiences and best practices in working with this material, and will then modify DE material according to local needs and curricula. Schools as well as the Ministry of Education will be actively involved and trainings and workshops will be offered for teachers and educators to acquire skills of how to best implement the modified DE material in their lesson plans, and of how to stimulate action among students in the field of development work. Teachers will be trained in integrating DE in their lessons and thus raising awareness of global interdependencies and about development cooperation and the emerging need for it among the youth of all project’s partner countries.
Objective 1
Raise awareness in Cyprus, Lithuania, Scotland, Ireland and Bulgaria about development issues and about the interdependence of EU countries and countries of the developing world.
The project aims at raising awareness about development issues through formal and non-formal education structures in Cyprus, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Scotland, and Ireland. Teachers in all partner countries, will review, revise and modify existing DE material so as to meet the needs of each partner country’s education system. The project aspires to train teachers so that they can act as multipliers of Development Education, reaching out to students in the partner countries, as well as in Bulgaria, raising awareness among the future leaders of our societies about development issues and about the interrelations between the EU and countries of the developing world.
Objective 2
Engage educators and youth to take action in support of the developing countries
The project aims at training educators in all partner countries on development issues and on the importance for civil society to take action the development issues. Through the integration of DE material in the formal education system, as well as through the teachers as multipliers students are expected to be stimulated to take action themselves. DE material will be selected according to the age group of students and will seek to provide inspiration for both small and larger actions that can be carried out by students.
Objective 3
Build capacity among educators to integrate Development Education in their lesson plans
Workshops targeting at both educators and representatives of Ministries of Education in the partner countries aim at a) providing training on how to integrate DE material in existing lesson plans, and b) involving the relevant stakeholders in the initiative to modify existing lesson plans with the goal to integrate the development focus. Furthermore, the project will provide trainings for teachers on how to use DE material in their lessons and how to include a DE focus in lessons such as history, geography, music, art and others.
Activities
- Map and compile existing materials on DE relevant for school curricula.
- International workshop to evaluate materials, exchange experiences and best practices.
- Create European depository with all relevant material accessible to teachers through the web.
- Modify and adapt materials according to relevance and standards of national curricula, engaging the Ministries of Education as well as their training centres in the process.
- Teachers’ Trainings on national level on how to integrate DE material in schools, involving Ministries of Education and their training centres.
- Implementing and testing DE materials in schools (LT and CY).
- International conference with teachers, NGDOs to reflect upon success of DE material in schools.
- Local Workshops
