P.1 School visits and workshops
Developmenteducation.ie Developmenteducation.ie is the onestop 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!
Awareness IN ACTION
P.3 Science solutions at BT Young Scientists Exhibition.
P.3 Millennium Goals book series
Gorta-Self Help Africa
global awareness
WorldwiseSchools.ie What support is available to teachers and schools who would like to bring development education to the classroom? Good question - and the answer is ‘WorldWise Global Schools’, Irish Aid’s fantastic programme that provides support for a wide range of Development Education initiatives and capacitybuilding in post-primary schools. To find out more visit: WorldWiseSchools.ie
n Students from Loreto College, Crumlin attending a Development Education Workshop hosted by WorldWise Global Schools.
in the community Community workshops, art projects and FETAC accredited training courses are all part of ‘Change-Makers’, an innovative new Dev Ed programme taking place in the North-West in Collaboration with Inishowen Development Partnership (IDP) and Donegal Education and Training Board (ETB). The project was nominated in the 2014 Aontas national awards for adult education.
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The universal language of sport
n Caoimhe Sheehan from Mallow in Uganda, this year.
GET IN TOUCH If you would like to arrange a workshop or some other activity in your classroom, or would simply like to find out more- please get in touch. You can contact us by dropping a note to Dorothy or Patsy at : dorothy.jacob@ selfhelpafrica.org or patsy.toland@selfhelpafrica.org, or call +01 677 8880.
n Self Help Africa’s Patsy Toland with student winners of the 2014 Science for Development Award- Zoe Cheshire and Emily Lecky and their teachers Nicola Craig and Paul Wilson.
Kingsbridge House,
Useful links:
17-22 Parkgate Street,
selfhelpafrica.org
Dublin 8, Co. Dublin,
developmenteducation.ie
Tel. +353 (0)1 6778880
worldwiseschools.ie
school visits workshops & events Gorta-Self Help Africa’s Development Education team is available to organise school visits, workshops and activities in your classroom.
Our team would be happy to work with you to present workshops on a range of development and social justice issues. All you have to do is get in touch! Gorta-Self Help Africa is the place to go if you’d be interested in hosting classroom activities that look at: • •
The role that farming plays in global poverty eradication The importance of gender equality in the fight against
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poverty The challenges that affect global development and the ways we can tackle climate change, limited access to knowledge, credit, markets, etc.
If you would like to bring a development focus into your classroom this year- either as a part of the TY programme, CSPE, religion, geography, science, just let us know. Contact information for our team is on the accompanying sheet.
Millennium Goals book series
SCHOOL STUDY TRIP VISIT uganda
Gorta-Self Help Africa has been collaborating with post-primary schools across Ireland on a series of books relating to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Uganda was the destination for students and teachers who travelled on Gorta-Self Help Africa’s annual schools’ study visit, in the Spring. Represented on the trip were teens and teachers from Tullamore College, Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew Co Wicklow, St Mary’s Secondary School, Mallow, Co Cork, Ballyclare High School, Co Antrim and Clonakilty Community School in Cork.
Since students at Colaiste Bhríde in Carnew and St. Peter’s College,
The group spent a week long trip visiting communities and getting a first hand insight into life in Uganda. They visited a number of the rural development projects being implemented by Self Help Africa, and also met with schoolgoing counterparts in Uganda. We 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, Eritrea, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya and Burkina Faso. Describing the trip as a “life-changing experience”, Megan Swart said “it has really opened my eyes.” Participating schools undertake a programme of fundraising activities to underwrite the costs of their travel - with students selected to take part on the basis of a short essay and interview in late Autumn.
n Megan Schwart and Rachel O’Connell from Carnew and Mallow respectively, on the 2014 schools visit to Uganda.
world food day 2014 Gorta-Self Help Africa marks World Food Day on October 16th next, and a number of great resources are available to enable you to raise the issue in the classroom. Downloadable resources are available at: worldfoodday. ie from early September, while an information booklet published in 2013, and an infographic poster highlighting the issues surrounding global food will be distributed this year. Get in touch if you would like any of these resources for your World Food Day activities.
Self Help Africa joined nearly 40,000 festival goers for the end of Summer annual ‘Electric Picnic’ music festival in Stradbally.
festival, and encouraged concertgoers to use puppets to speak out for Africa at the event.
Picnic project. This year’s project brought the ‘Picnic Peoples’ Puppet Forum’ to the music
Global Awareness - Gorta-Self Help Africa School Bulletin
In Development Education we seek to raise awareness and understanding amongst students of the rapidly changing, interdependent and unequal world in which we live. We encourage young people to analyse, reflect and take action in a manner that can transform the social, cultural, political and economic structures which affect their lives and the lives of others. Today’s students are tomorrow’s decision-makers. By providing information, we give them the power to bring positive change to our world.
Scientific solutions at BT exhibition
‘THINK AFRICA’ AT ELECTRIC PICNIC 2014
It was our 5th year at Electric Picnic, and as a part of the ‘Global Green’ programme our Development Education unit engaged throughout the weekend with concert-goers, encouraging participants to get involved, for a second successive year in ‘Think Africa’, our special Electric
What is development education?
As well as providing festive fun, participants took part in a filmed video project - sharing their views and perceptions about the continent of Africa and its future. The 2013 ‘Think Africa’ video has received almost 6,000 views on YouTube in the past year.
Dunboyne, produced the first book in the series, we have since published three books in the MDG series. We worked with students and teachers at St Wolstan’s Community School, Celbridge, on the second book - on universal primary education, and last year worked with a the Loreto schools network both at home and abroad, on a book that looked at ‘gender equality.’ This year we are inviting students, teachers, friends and family to join us once more in this exciting project - by submitting poems, written memories, reflections and pieces of art that relate to each of the five remaining MDG topics. For more details contact: patsy.toland@selfhelpafrica.org for information.
The ‘Science for Development Award’ has become one of the most popular awards at the BT Young Scientists Exhibition. All intermediate & senior projects that seek to motivate students to consider and devise scientific solutions to some of the challenges affecting people in the Global South. Issues such as hunger eradication, the environment, climate change, sustainable technology, water purification and health care have all been the subject of ‘Science for Development’ projects at the annual school science fair.
This special award applies across Science and associated subjects including Technology, Engineering, Materials Science, Social & Scientific and Geography, particularly in the Social/Behavioural section of BTYS. We would encourage teachers of any Science subject to consider this great opportunity. Our schools team is available to can conduct a special ‘Science Workshop’ for schools, to encourage, inspire and support interested students in their work in this area.
A travel bursary is awarded to the winning project, to enable a student and their teacher to take part in a week long study visit to Africa, where they can carry out further research into their successful project.
training & development education We support teachers to carry out Development Education work in the classroom. To further this aim we have taken part in a range of post-primary teacher training activities. The work engages trainee teachers in development issues
and explores curriculum possibilities across a range of subjects. Last year we took part in a three-day programme at NUI Maynooth, supported a lecture series at NUI Galway, and worked with subject lecturers at DCU. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
n Emily Lecky from Ballyclare shows her BT Young Scientist Project
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Global Awareness - Gorta-Self Help Africa School Bulletin
contact our team If you would like to arrange a workshop - get your students involved in thinking about Africa, about gender inequality, climate change, farming & food production, fair trade, or about the efforts that are underway to eradicate hunger and poverty - why not get in touch? We have a great team in place who would be happy to host a workshop or some other activity. If you would like to get in touch just drop a mail to: schools@selfhelpafrica.org, or low-call: 1850 757678 and we’ll get back to you.
Patsy toland (Leinster & north-west) Patsy is one of the leading figures in Development Education in Ireland. A former teacher and school principal with a wealth of experience in the area, he is a former chairman of the Irish Development Education Association and sat on the Advisory Panel to the MInister for Development and Trade on Development Education issues.
jim kirwan (wexford/wicklow/carlow) Jim was a teacher of English and Assistant Principal in Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew, Co. Wicklow. Now retired, he has since ‘gone back to school’, and completed an MA in Development Studies. Jim has been a member of the Self Help Africa development education team for the past two years, conducting workshops and other presentations in schools.
michael schwartz (waterford/south-east) For more than two decades Michael has served as an educator who enjoys teaching young people and learning from them every day. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Temple University and UCD, Michael specializes in teaching English and in teaching individuals with special educational needs. An avid traveller, Michael was born in Pennsylvania but now lives in Ireland with his wife and three children.
jesse jacob (galway/clare/mayo) Jesse is a student of NUI Galway, where she is completing her MA in International Human Rights Law. A graduate of International Relations from Dublin City University, she also studied for a year at Sciences Po University in Paris. She has traveled in Africa, spending time in Kenya and Eritrea.
Sheila Gilbert (Cork/South-West) Sheila recently retired as a full-time teacher, having worked for many years at Sacred Heart School in Clonakilty. A teacher of Biology, she had a particular interest in Ecology. She was also the school’s Transition Year coordinator. She has been an active supporter of Development Education in the classroom, and brings to the team a wealth of knowledge and experience.
Noeleen leahy (Kildare/meath/offaly) Noeleen was the TY Coordinator in St Wolstan’s Community School, Celbridge, Co Kildare for 12 years and retired in 2014. Her subjects included Geography, Religion, IT, LCVP, CSPE, SPHE. She integrated, and led, Development Education into her own subjects and across the TY programme for a number of years. award She is passionate about Development Education and technology.
dorothy jacob (leinster) Dorothy Jacob is co-ordinating Self Help Africa’s schools outreach programme. She has been teaching with Co Wicklow VEC’s degree course in Performing Arts for the past 20 year, ran a mobile puppet theatre for 18 years, and organises Bray Jazz Festival.
Kingsbridge House, 17-22 Parkgate Street, Dublin 8, Co. Dublin, Tel. +353 (0)1 6778880 Re gist er ed c har it y num b e r : 6 6 6 3
our workshops GORTA-SELF HELP AFRICA has a long history of engaging with Post Primary schools across the country. We are now launching our expanded school speaker team with school speakers located across the country who will be happy to visit your school with their workshop engagement. This will comprise of 3 inter-related workshops on themes central to our work in Africa: Food Security; Gender equality and Climate Change. These workshops will normally be of two-class period duration and are aimed mainly at Transition Year students, but can be adapted for Religion, Geography, CSPE and a number of other subject areas at both Junior and Senior level. The workshops will aim to engage students through a variety of activities and themes and help them connect their lives and actions with the wider Global population – in particular with the poorest people on the planet – rural families across Africa.
Workshop 1 - Population, food, wealth & trade This workshop will aim to set the scene of the inequality that exists in our world that we all share. Population, food, wealth and trade will all be introduced and solutions examined. Students will be encouraged to see their own world as part of the problem and part of the solution to Global Inequality.
Kibira slum in Nairobi has grown into Africa’s largest urban slum - with a population estimated at one million people. Much of the population lack basic sanitation and clean running water.
Workshop 2 - water, land, gender and agriculture With a more specific look at the work of Self Help Africa, this workshop will examine the lives of rural farming families and the issues that have driven them into a cycle of poverty. Water, land, trees, gender equality, farming and access to seed, trade and markets for their produce are all issues that will be explored in an area that reflects the role that Self Help Africa has played in eradicating poverty and hunger since its foundation 30 years ago.
Women do up to 80% of the work on small farms in Africa, yet receive as little as 5-10% of the support that is available. If African women were to receive a fair share of resources, food production would increase by up to 20%.
Workshop 3 - Climate change and Fair trade This workshop will bring some major global issues including Climate Change and Fair Trade to the students. Focusing on the actions of the students in their own lives and encouraging them to step up to the challenge of creating a better world through personal, family or school actions and campaigns.
The communities who are least responsible for causing climate change - African farmers - are the people who are being most effected by changes in weather patterns.
All the workshops will have an activity-based approach which will involve students in group work, role play, self-reflection, and engender mutual respect. An open space classroom is preferred and access to a data projector would be appreciated. Although single class period can be used as an introduction workshop, a double period is most useful to deepen the engagement and deal with issues and actions in some depth.
Kingsbridge House, 17-22 Parkgate Street, Dublin 8, Co. Dublin, Tel. +353 (0)1 6778880 Re gist er ed c har it y num b e r : 6 6 6 3