This quarter brought us many firsts: the launch of our first online professional development course for educators, 'Introduction to Dialogue' and our first Instagram account, connecting young learners to Generation Global via the platform. We wrapped up the SDG Dialogue Series with young people participating from over 20 countries and hosted, for the first time, a workshop for young adults (18-24) to become global communicators at AFS Youth Assembly in New York.
Generation Global is looking for a firm to develop and launch a mobile app (iOS/Android) to offer a new way for young people to access and interact with the Ultimate Dialogue Adventure, an interactive web platform for 13-17-year-olds. The work will include: Scoping the functionalities, user experience, technological specifications and requirements to successfully publish the app globally on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store; Developing the app using native frameworks; Maintaining the app, through regular release of fixes and ad-hoc development of new features to improve the user experience.
'I love being a teacher', says Odette Kuunaa Dery, a member of the science faculty at a junior high in a Children Believe-supported school in Tamale, the capital of Ghana's Northern region. 'I get to interact with young people at an age when you can have a powerful impact and shape them.' Fellow teacher, Brenda Amadu Amoah, nods in agreement. Odette and Brenda developed their passion for teaching in college and, several decades later, their enthusiasm has only grown. Their commitment to students is increasingly important given the evolving complexities of our interconnected world.
We have lots of exciting updates and announcements to support you on your Global Citizenship journey in this newsletter. We are making everyday count by creating more teaching resources, recognising educators achievements through our Educator Awards and inviting even more young people from all over the world to join us on the Ultimate Dialogue Adventure. We have also updated the video conference schedule with new topics and ramped up our efforts to stay in touch with educators through WhatsApp groups. Our second newsletter this year is complete with everything we want to share!
When the pandemic hit in Lebanon, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change adapted its Wahda programme curriculum to the digital environment. This USAID-funded intervention built on existing learning from a decade of delivering Generation Global, the Institute’s flagship global citizenship programme. While the programme sought to increase tolerance and understanding amongst young men and women (aged 13 - 24) across ethnic and religious divides in Lebanon, it was young women that demonstrated greater participation, engagement, and therefore benefit within the programme.
The first edition of the Generation Global Newsletter for 2022 is here! This quarter, we published two new resources to support practitioners and educators introduce Global Citizenship and dialogue into the classroom: the Youth Dialogue Handbook and ‘Essentials of Dialogue’ in Spanish. We also hosted two online events in the first quarter for educators as well as young people to connect, learn, and share. It was great to see teachers from all over the world joining our first ever Teacher Webinar to learn from best practices and understand how to effectively use Generation Global resources in their classrooms. The Fireside Chat was the first of its kind to bring young people together around a topic that matters to all of us.
A globalized world like ours requires citizens with a respectful vision of multicultural diversity, informed and empathetic people, willing to get involved in searching for solutions, professionally competent, and simultaneously sensitive to cultural diversity. Therefore, multicultural teachers are challenged to have the appropriate tools to achieve the objectives of multicultural education. Notably, in Prepa Tec, a multicultural teacher links the contents of the subject they instruct to local, national, or international aspects of cultural diversity.
Welcome to the fourth edition of the Generation Global Newsletter for 2021!
We have many
reasons to celebrate this past quarter, starting with our 10-year programme anniversary in Indonesia
to our first anniversary of launching our student platform, the Ultimate Dialogue Adventure. And the
cherry on top is being selected as one of the top 100 education innovations to watch in 2022 by
HundrED. This is a proud moment for all of us at Generation Global. Thank you for believing in us
and supporting us along the way.
Welcome to the third edition of the Generation Global Newsletter!
This edition will bring you
up to speed with everything that’s been unfolding over the past quarter – many exciting developments
to the teacher portal, new partnerships, and new team members!
We are working very hard to
expand our reach to enable the next generation of young people to develop global citizenship and
dialogue skills. In the next three years, we have a goal to empower 100,000 young people to become
active and open minded global citizens through the programme.
Welcome to our second edition of the Generation Global Newsletter, packed full of updates on our
activities, impact stories and resources.
One of the themes for the programme this
quarter has been about building peaceful and sustainable societies and how to equip young people
with the skills and attitudes to take action in achieving this in their communities.
The
#restoreourearth photo contest in May amplified the actions taken by young people, that are
participating in Generation Global, to achieve a sustainable future.
Welcome to our first ever Generation Global issue! We are very excited to launch this newsletter to
share with you exciting updates about new developments, events, news, and impact stories from the
Generation Global community.
We started 2021 with many firsts - conducting our
first workshop with educators in Indonesia on curriculum integration, launching a brand new
topic on civic participation, and setting up our first cohort of student and teacher advisory
groups. You can read about all this and other exciting things in this quarter's edition.
The Covid-19 pandemic has thrust teachers and students into the largest educational experiment the world has ever seen. The lockdowns have compelled teachers to embrace technology and challenged students to learn via Zoom, mobile phones, radio and television. Over 750 million girls and young women have been part of this global experiment and there is emerging evidence to suggest that this shift to online learning could be having a positive impact on girls' education.
Lucy Hayter
The year 2020 will not be forgotten any time soon. For years to come, people around the world, of every age and from all walks of life, will remember the series of life-altering events that took place during these 12 months. For many, these incidents unfolded online and on social media: From our homes we have watched devastating wildfires in Australia and the Black Lives Matter movement that took the world by storm following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.”
Serie Jimenez
Pupils around the world have been impacted by lockdown – so offering a global platform for them to come together and learn could be key to helping them adapt. Almost 9 million children in England returned to schools this week. They join hundreds of millions of students globally who have either already returned to school or hope to soon. The priorities for schools will be markedly different this year owing to Covid-19 – regular handwashing, staggered lesson times, social distancing and restrictions on extracurricular activities will be the new norm.
Lucy Hayter
COVID-19 is an educational crisis of a global nature never seen before. In just one month, 90% of all learners worldwide (more than 1.5 billion young people) saw their school or university close. As Medha, a Generation Global teacher in India, told us: “Because the lockdown was sudden, many students don’t have stationery and no books. They are panicking. I feel the school buildings are closed but the staff is working more than ever to continue the teaching-learning process. After the shutdown, we were not equipped.”
Xan Northcott
Serie Jimenez
The Covid-19 pandemic has surfaced many social inequalities that we knew existed in our societies. For the education sector, these include deep disparities in environments conducive to effective at-home learning and inequities in access to technology. An OECD report released yesterday, which surveyed 59 countries’ responses to Covid-related school closures, reveals that only half of students have been able to access all or most of the curriculum through remote learning materials during lockdown.
Cleo Blackman
At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, we are redirecting our efforts globally to support the fight against Coronavirus.
Our education programme, Generation Global, is offering existing students a safe space to interact with their global peers using our resources and online student dialogue forum. At the same time, we are hosting virtual dialogue circles for teachers across all the regions we operate in.
Ian Jamison Cleo Blackman
To help build young people’s resilience to hate speech, our dialogue education programme, Generation Global, works with experts to produce briefing notes to help teachers understand narratives of hate. We have just launched two new ones – on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Muslim Hate. Knowing the themes that underpin these narratives means that teachers are better prepared to recognise them amongst students, when supporting them remotely and in school, and can feel confident to challenge them.
Cleo Blackman Ian Jamison
At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, we are redirecting our efforts globally to support the fight against Coronavirus.
Our education programme, Generation Global, is offering existing students a safe space to interact with their global peers using our resources and online student dialogue forum. At the same time, we are hosting virtual dialogue circles for teachers across all the regions we operate in.
Lucy Hayter
The world is divided in many dimensions today. Rich and poor. East and West. North and South. Divisions of culture, identity and faith. Some people are frightened of globalisation. Others welcome it. Some see diversity of population and society as a strength, while others see it as a threat to traditional ways of life and thinking. Yet one thing stands out. The future belongs to the open-minded. Globalisation is driven by people –through technology, through travel, through the possibility of migration.
Tony Blair
In the twenty-five years since World Teachers’ Day was launched, violent extremism has gone from a fringe problem to one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today. Security measures will always be vital but defeating this threat requires a generational struggle against the ideas that underpin the violence. A comprehensive, multifaceted strategy is needed with Education at the heart of it. That’s why on World Teachers’ Day this year, we’re calling on governments and the global education community to root out religious prejudice and promote tolerance throughout their education systems.
Emily Laurie
Rory MacLeod
The study of the effectiveness of the programme by academics at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter, published this week, found that in many schools the results were “spectacular.” In its lifetime, the programme has run in 40 countries, including Pakistan, Palestine, India, Israel, Italy, the UK, and the USA, and has connected 230,000 students aged 12-17 in over 2,500 schools around the world.
Ian Jamison