The Platform of Development Organisations Ambrela launched a public awareness campaign in February called ‘We all still have something to learn‘. This time, however, it did not focus on presenting its activities in humanitarian aid or development cooperation; rather, in the form of a series of videos and discussions, it will present the essence and need for global education in schools and beyond.
“Global education allows people to critically reflect on the world and their place in it; it opens their eyes, hearts, and minds to the reality of the world at both local and global levels,” states the new European Declaration on Global Education to 2050, which was adopted in early November in Dublin by governments across Europe, including Slovakia. A national Strategy for Global Education should soon be adopted in Slovakia as well; the platform of development organisations Ambrela, which brings together 30 non-governmental organisations in Slovakia, also worked on its preparation. Its member and observer organisations, focusing on global education (GV), contributed substantially to the consultation process for drafting the strategy and will also be part of the current Ambrela awareness campaign on the essence and need for global education in schools and outside schools.
The February campaign titled ‘We all still have something to learn‘ is intended to show the public why implementation of the National Strategy for Global Education in Slovakia is needed, and what society gains when we focus on global education in schools, as well as on sensitising the population and lifelong learning for adults outside formal school settings. Ambrela is implementing the campaign within the project ‘EduGlobe – pathway to the implementation of the National Strategy for Global Education‘ with support from Active Citizens Fund – Slovakia. It will consist of a series of videos, thematic discussions, and presentations of educational activities by Ambrela organisations. The first video, titled ‘Unexpected help’ on (in)attentiveness and solidarity with people in need, created in cooperation with Ondruš studio s.r.o., can be seen on social networks this very week.
The concept of the first video, titled ‘Unexpected help’, is explained by creative director of the partner studio Martin Ondruš: “We needed to creatively express the current topic of the last year – the perception and reaction of Slovaks to the beginning of the war in Ukraine and the arrival of tens of thousands of Ukrainian displaced men and women on our territory. We need to continually emphasise the need for greater attentiveness, care, and solidarity with people in need around us, because it is often precisely those people who can surprise us with their actions. We all still have something to learn – about ourselves, about the people around us, and about the ever-changing world in which we coexist.” The mentioned video can be watched here: https://youtu.be/_rxPPNw40JI
Ambrela’s Secretary General, Daniel Kaba, in relation to the launch of this awareness campaign, notes that “with growing global challenges in the EU’s and Slovakia’s neighbourhood and their increasingly larger impact on Slovakia’s population, we should strive not only to increase funding for Slovak foreign aid, but also to raise public awareness of the need to think about these challenges in context, which is the core of global education. That is why Ambrela launched the campaign in the month when, as a neighbouring nation, we will mark the tragic first anniversary of the war in Ukraine.”
In follow-up to the release of the first video, Ambrela is organising a thematic discussion titled ‘How to support our attentiveness and increase solidarity with people in need‘ on 15 February at 18:00, live at the Bratislava .klub pod lampou. A second campaign video on the topic will be added in the second half of February.
About Ambrela: The Platform of Development Organisations – Ambrela is the umbrella organization of 30 primarily non-governmental organisations in Slovakia, which are involved in development cooperation, humanitarian aid, and global education – both at home and abroad. Since last year it has been implementing the project ‘EduGlobe – pathway to the implementation of the National Strategy for Global Education‘ with support from Active Citizens Fund – Slovakia. The campaign ‘We all still have something to learn‘ is one of the outputs of this project and includes the mentioned videos, thematic discussions, and presentations of Ambrela educational organisations’ profiles. For more, see: www.eduglobe.ambrela.org.