GlobaLab News
Volume nº1 - The Picture of a Future Global Citizen
Welcome to the first newsletter of the GlobaLab project. During the project we plan to issue in total 5 newsletters that will be dedicated to the specific results that we develop. In the first volume you can find publication called ¨The Picture of a Future Global Citizen¨ that is a research result that has been implemented in 4 participating countries during the months of September-November 2015. From the publication you can learn how young people and youth workers see or would like to see the future global citizens and which direction we should go in order to implement the quality Global Citizenship activities.
In the future chapters of the newsletter you will be able to find:
- Global Citizenship Education competence framework – publication that will guide you on what kind of competences we should work with young people in order to create quality educational programmes
- Guide for Youth Workers and Educators – that will include the ready session outlines that can be use in the classroom, and during the non formal education activities
- Mobile application – that will be developed for young people to support their Global Citizenship Education
- Good Practices publication – that will gather different ways how to work with young people.
As you can see with the project we will develop the complete set of educational materials, that can guide you step by step on how to do Global Citizenship Education with the young people with whom you are working.
Stay tuned for the next developments!
About the project
GlobaLab project aims to improve the quality of youth work and join efforts of youth and educational bodies towards making young people promoters of global citizenship. The GlobaLab-2 project will be a laboratory for young people, where they will have an opportunity to think of the issues they face every day from the global perspective. It will allow them to find their own role in the global society, as well as stimulate their behavioural change in order to contribute to sustainable development both locally and globally. The project will also allow its participants to identify the effects of the global issues to their own lives and make them become more active and responsible by changing their own views, attitudes and daily habits.
The Picture of a Future Global Citizen
About the publication
Today young people face new challenges related to interconnectivity of people and countries around the world. The recent trends of globalization process make a significant impact on the lives of young people, as well as the local communities they belong to. Dependency on issues in other regions, as well as increasing diversity in a local society requires to rethink, what new competences young people need nowadays. Furthermore, current trends require a more active civic participation of youngsters towards meeting challenges of the global society.
In order to be able to act towards meeting today’s global challenges, youngsters need to start thinking beyond the borders of their countries. They should start perceiving the world as one community and be able to find their own role in coping with major global issues that the global society is facing today. Young people should start perceiving themselves not only as citizens of their country, but as citizens of the world, which means taking responsibility for the future of the global society.
This publication is the result of the project “Six Steps to Global Citizenship” co-funded by European Commission, Erasmus+ programme. It was developed by the project team from 4 countries: Lithuania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Spain. The publication includes a set of articles presenting individual results of the research conducted in all partner countries meant to draw a picture of a future global citizen by identifying key characteristics (knowledge, skills, values and personal features) necessary for such person.
Each article presents the case of every partner country on what young people need today in order to become promoters of global justice and contribute to the process of sustainable development in the global community. The articles are based on the views, opinions and ideas of young people and other actors active in youth and education sectors, as well as the observations of the project team members who were responsible for the research process. The publication represents the views and ideas of a huge number of stakeholders, thus some of positions might be conflicting in different articles.
Concept of Global Citizenship
Citizenship is usually understood in the context of a specific country and represents the formal link between a country and a concrete person, its citizen. This link consists of rights and responsibilities. In the classic case, the country (the national governments) is supposed to secure my rights as a citizen, while I owe a set of obligations (the classical example – pay taxes). Furthermore, we could easily be sanctioned if we don’t follow these obligations. Pretty easy, isn’t it? However, when we talk about Global Citizenship, things are not that simple. We are all global citizens already, citizens of the world, regardless of whether we realize it or not, because our behaviours influence people on the other side of the globe and we are dependent on different actors and communities across borders and oceans. As there is no ‘global government’ our global citizenship is a link between us and ‘the world’. Again, this link consists of rights (privileges, benefits) and responsibilities. The first category includes stuff we take for granted, but which are easily accessible to us thanks to the globalized world we live in – like the Internet, cell phones, fruits and drinks from the other side of the world, etc. But what about responsibility? What is the set of rules we need to follow to pay our fair share to ‘the world’? And who will sanction us if we don’t?
There’s no book where the exact answers are given. Actually, the global citizens need to ‘write’ their own book – take a path to global citizenship, get aware, get active and learn. We will provide the guidance for that.
To summarise it, the perfect global citizen would be the one that acknowledges their benefits from being part of a global community, but also recognizes their responsibility towards it and acts on it. Global education is then the learning process that supports people to become perfect global citizens.
About us
Project partners:
- GLOBAL CITIZENS‘ ACADEMY - Lithuania
- PRO EUROPEAN NETWORK - Bulgaria
- FUTURE WORLD CENTER - Cyprus
- CAZALLA INTERCULTURAL - Spain
Email: globalab.ka2@gmail.com
Website: http://www.globalab.org
Location: https://maps.google.com/?q=Lithuania&ftid=0x46dd94140f33be13:0xf30a54d3a55dbab9
Phone: +34968471123
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/globalab2/