9 x 9 x 9: Building Global Connections

This 3-year project is funded by DFID and supported by the York Fanteakwa Community Link: linking York with Fanteakwa District in Ghana (YFCL)

Main Aim:

• To enable pupils to understand their place in the world by exploring an “extended present”¹, as they engage with peers in a developing country and learn lessons from the past
• To empower pupils to actively participate in creating a sustainable world for tomorrow.

Key objectives:

• To support KS2 Teachers in 5 primary schools to engage with global issues including health, poverty, sustainability and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with greater confidence and understanding
• To embed the global dimension and sustainability within each school and disseminate to other schools within the school clusters
• To enable pupils to explore in depth being 9 years old in the UK today; as compared to being 9 years old in Ghana today or 9 years old in the past
• To develop reciprocal curriculum exchanges between pupils in the UK and Ghana in order to promote understanding, skills, values and attitudes.
• To work with the wider community through workshops with parents and grandparents
• Pupils will explore relationships between the past, present and future and develop a sense of chronology
• Pupils will engage with probable and preferred futures²
• The theme each year will be taken from the MDGs : Health - Goals 4,5 and 6, Homes and sustainable living - Goal 7, Education and gender equality - Goals 2, 3
• A focus in each year will be equality education including race and gender leading to challenging stereotypes and discrimination

In this project we have been working with the schools in York that are developing global school partnerships with schools in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana. During the first year of the project we looked at the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) linked these with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These were introduced to the pupils through the UNICEF Rights and Needs activity. The project then focussed on Article 24 of the UNCRC

• Children have the right to good quality healthcare, to clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that they will stay healthy.

This was linked to the MDGs covering health and a Global Health Game was developed. Teachers and pupils participated in a range of activities which they shared with their parents/grandparents and their Link school in Ghana.

During the year we were also delighted to work with the York museums services who provided an opportunity for teachers to go behind the scenes as the Castle Museum to look at a wide range of artefacts relating to health. Several schools also took up the opportunity of having a visit from the museum staff. CGE staff provided pupil workshops on challenging stereotypes and Philosophy for Children Each school was provided with a selection of resources to support the project.

During the year we were also delighted to work with the York museums services who provided an opportunity for teachers to go behind the scenes as the Castle Museum to look at a wide range of artefacts relating to health. Several schools also took up the opportunity of having a visit from the museum staff. CGE staff provided pupil workshops on challenging stereotypes and Philosophy for Children.

Each school was provided with a selection of resources to support the project.

Philosophical questions that children posed:

• Why is Ghana so poor and we are so privileged?
• Why do we take things for granted when they have to work for their food and water?
• Why was Ghana a developing country in the first place?

What next!

• Year 2 focus will be homes and sustainable living to include: rethinking, reducing, reusing and finally recycling, investigating the different materials homes are made from, electricity fuel/heating use, different forms of families, work and leisure
• Year 3 focus will be education and child participation in school life exploring school rules, inclusion, role of the school council, school games, school dinners and pupils as Carbon Detectives working on the 8 sustainable schools doorways

If you are interested in finding out more about this project please contact Chrissie

¹ Citizenship for the Future – David Hicks (WWF 2001)

² Ibid