All too often in politics, you spend time in rooms with decision makers and those seeking to influence their decision whilst often being somewhat distant from the people who are actually living their experiences on the front line. I’m always glad to get away from ‘the bubble’ and spend time out in the ‘real world’. And it’s exactly what made this conference so effective in my mind. It brought together a diverse group of charities, NGOs, teachers and political staff to work together on the same issues, together, without any kind of ‘us and them’ feel to it.
Like any event, we kicked the conference off with some ice breakers, getting to know our colleagues who would be joining us from the 11 other EU countries in attendance. I speak just about enough German to fumble my way through a menu in a restaurant, so it was both helpful and also quite saddening to realise just how fluent at English every one of the partner countries was.
At school, I often thought of global learning and citizenship as a standalone subject area, something we did as an ‘extra’. So, it was fascinating to attend a workshop run by colleagues from Ireland, setting out how they’ve been able to integrate global learning themes into other subjects such as History (movement of people) and Geography (people and climate). Rather than separating global learning, their success had been in essentially making it a second nature part of the curriculum. Given the time and budget pressures schools face, integrating global learning into existing subjects was not just beneficial to schools, it also made the learning more real and relevant to the students. Schools in Britain would do well to further explore this approach.
For me, the other big takeaway from the conference was an initiative from the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security. In the Netherlands, around 35 staff at the Ministry give regular guest lectures to schools about the work they do on migration to help tackle ‘fake news’ and improve understanding of the issues. The Ministry clearly valued the work by allowing staff to take the time to do it. It seemed such a simple idea but one which could make a huge difference both to the young people taking part but also the lecturers themselves too.
As part of the conference, I was invited to visit ZARA (Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit), the Austrian anti-racism network. Being familiar with the excellent work of Hope Not Hate in the UK, I know how important the work of anti-racism charities is and it’s clear that ZARA is no different. In recent months, there has been a notable rise in racially motivated incidents in the UK – particular accountability on social networks has given rise to this. ZARA talked about how they’ve needed to adapt their work in recent years, to meet the challenges of tackling racism online. They also challenged our own perceptions too, showing us 3 different images of the same women to make us think about the conclusions we often rush to when we first interact with someone.
As the ‘tech savvy’ member of the group, I was also put in charge of the team’s social media for the week. The Liverpool World Centre has around 500 followers on Twitter (@Liv_worldcentre) but our tweets were able to reach over 4,000 people across the 3 days. It was good to see social media being used to generate positive discussion rather than negative ones.
It would be remiss of me to write a blog in the current climate and not mention Brexit. Whatever the outcome of the next few months, one thing that is clear to me is that Britain cannot afford to isolate itself in the world and global learning must remain a part of the education agenda. Coming away from the conference, I’m keen to pick up some of the ideas discussed and share them with politicians that I work with throughout the UK and continue to push the need for global learning in our education system.
Alex Mitchell, Regional Organiser (Print & Digital Advertising Manager), The Labour Party and Guest of the Liverpool World Centre