Schools Newsletter 2013 - Development Education

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/ School visit to Burkina

Faso / ‘Think Africa’ @

WorldwiseSchools.ie

Awareness IN ACTION

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/ Scientific solutions at BT

Electric Picnic 2013

global awareness

What support is available to teachers and schools who would like to bring development education in to their classroom?

Good question - and the answer is ‘WorldWise Global Schools’, Irish Aid’s fantastic new programme that provides support for a wide range of Development Education initiatives and capacity-building in post-primary schools. To find out more about training opportunities, grant support and much more visit: WorldWiseSchools.ie

Keane Nolan and DJ Hanley taking part in Irish Aid’s Africa Day event in Dublin.

Developmenteducation.ie Developmenteducation.ie is the one-stop shop for all the resources you’re likely to need to support your work in the classroom. Self Help Africa works closely with Developmenteducation.ie, and also works closely with students and teachers to produce the best quality and accessible resources for the classroom. We aim to share our expertise and resources as widely as possible, and this web-site does just that! The site offers resources for a wide range of themes, levels, topical issue content and guides and advice.

Winter 2013

www.selfhelpafrica.org

The ‘Cut Out Dolls’ with Self Help Africa at Electric Picnic (see story inside)

GET IN TOUCH

Carlow students Mark Lawlor, Patrick O’Grady and teacher Aileen Tennant meet members of Dassui women’s market gardening group in Burkina Faso.

If you would like to arrange a workshop or some other activity in your classroom, or would simply like to find out moreplease get in touch.

We’d be happy to make suggestions and offer advice, whether it’s regarding a school visit, Young Social Innovators project, BT Young Scientists Exhibition, Transition Year module or some other event or activity.

Self Help Africa’s Jim Kirwan is pictured with winners of a Young Scientists Exhibition in Tanzania, at the BT Young Scientists Exhibition in Dublin, this year.

You can get in touch by dropping a note to Dorothy (pictured), at : dorothy.jacob@selfhelpafrica.org or calling +353 (0) 1 554 7454.

Re gis t er ed c har it y num b e r : 6 6 6 3

/ WorldWise Global Schools/Get

in touch / Dev Ed in action

Expo / Millennium Goals Book

school visits workshops & events

We have a new team of outreach workers onboard to conduct activities in the classroom - so if you’re interested in hosting workshops on social justice and development issues - do get in touch.

Self Help Africa is the place to go

Kingsbridge House,

Useful links:

17-22 Parkgate Street,

selfhelpafrica.org

Dublin 8, Co. Dublin,

developmenteducation.ie

Tel. +353 (0)1 6778880

worldwiseschools.ie

Self Help Africa’s Development Education team is available to organise school visits, workshops and activities in your classroom.

if you’d be interested in hosting classroom activities that look at: •

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the role & importance of agriculture in global poverty eradication The importance of gender equality

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in the fight against poverty The challenges that affect global development and the remedies being put in place to address climate change, limited access to knowledge, credit, markets.

If you would like to incorporate activities with a development focus in your school year, either as a part of the TY programme, CSPE, religion, geography, science or other subject, do get in touch.

Contact information for our team of development education outreach workers is on the accompanying sheet.

Millennium Goals book series

SCHOOL STUDY TRIP VISIT BURKINA FASO West Africa was the destination for students and teachers who travelled on Self Help Africa’s annual schools’ study visit, in the

of study in International Development and Food Policy at University College, Cork, was informed in large part by her trip to Burkina Faso and her experience with Self Help Africa.

Spring.

Represented on the trip were teens and teachers from Tullamore College, Sacred Heart Loreto, Clonakilty, Lucan Community College, and St. Mary’s Academy CBS, Carlow, who spent a week long trip visiting communities and getting a first hand insight into life in

Self Help Africa has been organising student study visits to Africa for more than a decade, and in that time has taken more than 250 students and teachers on fact finding visits to Ethiopia, Eritea, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya and Burkina Faso.

Participating schools undertake a programme of fundraising activities to underwrite the costs of their travel - with students in participating schools selected to travel on the basis of a short essay and interview in which they are invited to explain why they would wish to travel.

Burkina Faso.

Students Eveleen Clancy and Cianna Ryan-Lynch play drums in Burkina Faso

The group visited a number of the rural development projects being implemented by Self Help Africa, and also met with schoolgoing counterparts and youth groups in Burkina Faso, visited historic and cultural sites, and had an opportunity to gain new insight into what life is like in Burkina Faso, one of Africa’s poorest countries.

“The trip really opened my eyes”, said Cianna Ryan-Lynch, a Leaving Cert student who says that her decision since to embark on a course

Students Maeve Murphy, Eveleen Clancy and Niamh O’Reilly and teacher Sinead Mangan from Clonakilty, with members of Wend Yam Beekeepers in Burkina Faso.

As a part of the ‘Global Green’ area at Electric Picnic, our Development Education unit engaged throughout the weekend with concert-goers, encouraging scores of participants to get involved in‘Think Africa’, our special Electric Picnic project.

‘Think Africa’ invited concert goers to do just that... and write down the first word

that came to mind when they turned their thought to the continent of Africa.

Participants were then presented with a series of surprising facts that might challenge ‘conventional wisdom’ - and then invited to re-do the process, and again write the first word that came to mind.

The outcome saw a shift in the pattern of responses- as words like ‘poverty’, ‘hunger’, ‘corruption’, and ‘famine’ were replaced in many instances by words such

Global Awareness - The Self Help Africa School Bulletin

Since award-winning author Sebastian Barry launched the first book in the series ‘Twenty-Fifteen- Thoughts & Reflections on Eradicating Hunger and Poverty’, produced by students at Colaiste Bhríde, Carnew, and St. Peter’s College, Dunboyne, Self Help Africa has worked with students from St Wolstan’s Community School, Celbridge, and from across the Loreto network both at home and overseas, to produce n The third in the series of MDG books will be launched in early December.

publications that looked at the MDG goals to deliver universal primary education, and gender equality respectively.

‘THINK AFRICA’ AT ELECTRIC PICNIC 2013 Self Help Africa joined the throng of more than 35,000 festival goers for the end of Summer annual ‘Electric Picnic’ in Stradbally, Co. Laois.

Self Help Africa has been collaborating in recent years with post-primary schools across Ireland on a series of books relating to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

as ‘hope’, ‘potential’ and ‘opportunity’.

The fun exercise - for it was intended as fun - was all filmed, and within just over a month had received more than 5,000 YouTube views.

If conclusions could be drawn, it demonstrated the impact that knowledge and information can have in changing how people view a subject. In this instance, how people ‘Think Africa’.

What is development education?

The Irish Development Education Association (IDEA) defines development education as: “An educational process aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of the rapidly changing, interdependent and unequal world in which we live. It seeks to engage people in analysis, reflection and action for local and global citizenship and participation. It is about supporting people in understanding, and in acting to transform the social, cultural, political and economic structures which affect their lives and others at personal, community, national and international levels.”

Scientific solutions at BT exhibition The Self Help Africa/ Irish Aid ‘Science for Development Award’ has become one of the most popular special awards at the BT Young Scientists Exhibition.

All Intermediate and Senior projects are eligible for the award, which for the past nine years has sought to motivate students to examine and understand the connections between local and global contexts for tackling issues of hunger eradication, the environment, climate change, sustainable technology, and health care in the developing world.

A travel bursary of €5,000, sponsored

by Irish Aid, is awarded, to enable a winning student and teacher to join in a study visit to Africa, to conduct further research into the successful project.

Previous winners have included the designers of fuel efficient cookstoves, methods of food preservation, and studies into topics such as nutrition.

We’d ask Science teachers to encourage students to ‘think Development’, when they’re planning for next year’s BT Young Scientists Exhibition. We have a special ‘Science Workshop’ available to schools who are interested in developing this option in the classroom.

In 2014 we will be working to produce the fourth in this series - a publication that will combine the MDGs on reducing child mortality and improve maternal health.

The books are primarily the work of TY students, and capture the thoughts on these topics from hundreds of students, as well as contributions gathered by the student editors from a wide array of celebrity contributors, including former Irish President Mary Robinson, authors Sebastian Barry, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Connor, the late Nobel winning poet Seamus Heaney, and from a wide variety of other personalities in public life.

For more details contact: patsy.toland@ selfhelpafrica.org for information.

‘Science for Development Award’ winners Fergus Jayes, Darragh O’Donovan and Ciaran Crowley from Clonakilty Community College, at the RDS, Dublin, last January.

Global Awareness - The Self Help Africa School Bulletin