The new time has brought new challenges and opened for young people not only geographical boarders but also boarders and horizons of competences. The topics of global interdependence and responsibility are becoming more relevant and the current globalisation trends caused that the active global citizenship is becoming more and more important. Critical thinking, sustainable ways of living, respect, solidarity, fight against xenophobia and understanding the connection between global end local are important components of their competences, which young people should acquire and reflect on to become active global citizens. Young people are unprepared for fast changing interconnected globalized world. According to Eurobarometer 2013 (Future of Europe) nearly half of Europeans think society should stress social equality and solidarity in order to face major global challenges. Social equality and solidarity are closely related to the values and attitudes. Better understanding, ability to analyse and think critically on connection between individual action and global issues is missing also because of difficulties to implement learning oriented to attitudes into formal education curriculum. Shift to non formal education as effective tool of spreading global citizenship concept is underlined by the researches done in Estonia. A study conducted in 2013 within the project „Youth of the World” among the Estonian youth organisations showed a great interest towards global education topics. 80% of the 83 organisations that took part in the survey were interested in learning more about global topics, particularly inter-cultural dialogue, access to education, sustainable development and human rights and discrimination. The results clearly indicated that there is a need for training opportunities to support youth organizations putting more focus on global issues. 91% of the respondents said that they would be interested in taking part in (or sending a member of their organization to) a training seminar on global citizenship education. In Austria similar survey showed that Global Learning is seen as absolutely relevant and more support related to trainings and material is needed. Our project reflects on all of the topics related to sustainability and supporting the individual actions to take an active role in the globalised world. Moreover, it stresses the importance to bring the new competences also in the field of non-formal education, where such competences are still under-estimated. Project also offers possibility to think of sustainable and long-term solutions, which includes strengthened international networking within global citizenship organizations as well as coordination with other important stakeholders like youth organizations. The aim of the project is to improve cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices in global citizenship education within non-formal education by which will be created better conditions for bringing the topics of global active citizenship to non-formal education, particularly youth work. The specific objectives are: • enhanced quality and relevance of the learning offer in non-formal education, particularly youth work in the area of global active citizenship and • developed the competencies of global active citizenship among youth workers and youth group leaders.
We live in a fast changing world filled with global connections, which opens up opportunities as well as posing us some huge challenges. In our daily live we use and depend on goods from all over the world, delivering not only wealth, but also responsibilities. What does it take to be a world citizen, and which wisdom, awareness, capacities and attitudes do we need to realise the dream of global justice and prosperity? The topics of global interdependence and responsibility are becoming more relevant and the current globalisation trends has caused that active global citizenship is becoming more and more important. Critical thinking, sustainable ways of living, respect, solidarity, fight against xenophobia and understanding the connection between global end local are important components of their competences, which young people should acquire and reflect on to become active global citizens. The initiative to create a strategic partnership of NGOs working in global education to exchange good practices within non-formal education and create better conditions for bringing the topics of global active citizenship to non-formal education came from People in Peril. PIPA has been actively working in global education since 2003 with the main focus on formal education. The motivation for the partnership was to get inspiration and learn from the partners organisation with more experiences and practices in linking global education with non-formal education particularly youth work. The aim of the project was: • to improve cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices in global citizenship education within non-formal education by which will be created better conditions for bringing the topics of global active citizenship to non-formal education, particularly youth work. The specific objectives were: • enhanced quality and relevance of the learning offer in non-formal education, particularly youth work in the area of global active citizenship and • developed the competencies of global active citizenship among youth workers and youth group leaders. There were 4 organisations in the strategic partnership: Mondo (Estonia), Südwind Agentur (Austria), CIES Onlus (Italy), People in peril (PIPA, Slovakia). All of them are involved in global education for more than 10 years. Südwind was established in 1980 and is important NGO in the global education field recognised on international level,covering formal and non-formal education, campaigning and advocacy activities. Mondo and PIPA have been active mostly in formal education, preparing publications and providing documentaries for teachers as learning tools. CIES has the closest link to youth work, since it runs a youth centre for youngsters mostly with migration background. The main undertaking activities were fallowing: • Survey on global education in youth work implemented through online questionnaire and focus groups in four involved countries. • Developed a common strategy how to introduce and support global education in youth work and provide learning offer for youth workers to improve their competences in dealing with global topic in their practice. • Creating a training curriculum for youth workers/youth leaders in global topics, which was used for international training of trainers for youth workers and youth leaders plus creating curriculum for trainings on national level. • 5 - days long international training of trainers for youth workers and youth leaders, including mentoring support in follow-up activates. • Creating methods pack – Global education and Youth work,Toolkit on food, migration and media topics • Sharing and exchange interesting articles, methods and ideas related to global education with participants involved in project activities directly or within the network on national level (through newsletter and sending learning offers) The results are: 1. Obtained and evaluated results from survey on global dimension in youth organisations 2. Developed strategy of implementing global citizenship education in youth organisations 3. Global citizenship training curriculum (international training) including drafting curriculum for trainings on national level. 4. Materials and methodology for global citizenship education-Toolkit on food, migration and media topic (21 activities, 90 pages in PDF) and translation in Slovak, Italian. 5. Training program for youth workers and youth leaders – trained 19 multipliers with improved skills in developing and facilitating workshops, empowered to implement global education activities in their practice, provide innovative and quality trainings for peers. 6. Exchange of good practices and expertise among the project partners, sharing know how and expertise in particular topics (4 meetings on topics food, visuals, media and migration/81 participants. All together 94 participants in all 6 transnational project meetings) 7. Develop and strengthened cooperation and network between global education and YOs