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Global connection: friends in UK and Uganda 'meet' for first time via DFID video
26 September 2008
Two groups of young students, from Holy Trinity School in Surrey, England and Namawojjolo Primary School in Uganda, met 'virtually' this week via a live video link. They discussed their school partnership, issues affecting lives and global poverty at the same time as world leaders were meeting at the UN to discuss progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
Watch more DFID videos on YouTube
A small group of children from each school came to DFID's offices in London and Kampala respectively, where they spent a day talking to each other, sharing experiences and producing a list of messages that they wanted to send to the world's leaders.
Holy Trinity School in Guildford and Namawojjolo Primary School in
Mukono have
been participating in a partnership with each other, supported by funding from
the
DFID Global School Partnerships (DGSP)
scheme. Teachers from both schools go on exchange visits each year to learn from
each other and bring their experiences directly into the classroom. The schools are
currently working on a shared curriculum project
about food,
the environment and hunger, which they hope will help students in both countries learn about global issues together.
The
children brought along typical everyday food items and explained to each other
where these had come from - whether locally grown, bought in markets and
supermarkets or imported from different countries around the world.
They also talked about issues they were concerned about - particularly the war in northern Uganda, HIV Aids, domestic violence and corruption. They then decided what they would like world leaders at the UN this week to change in the world - to stop war, end famine, make sure every child can read and write, and make it easy for everyone to get medicines.
Talking about the event, 13-year old Harriet Wanyana, from Namawojjolo, said: "[The video link-up] is about our agriculture project and cooperating in our daily situation and knowing how they live and how we live. I felt very happy. When communicating to someone you are seeing it is better. Its better than telephone!"
Holy Trinity students Anna Hubbard and Charles Hodson (both
aged 10) said:
"It was exciting talking to different children with different lives on the other side of the world. We talked about what food we ate, animals we had and what our hobbies were, as well world pollution and things we wanted to change about the earth; war, HIV
and AIDS, more medicines for poorer countries, government corruption and about how bad cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and gambling are".
The key messages that came out of the day were:
- On medicine - the children thought that governments should do more to help reduce cost of essential medicines for Africa
- On the war in northern Uganda - that there should be more effort put in to negotiations to end the fighting and that governments should send money to help affected people
- On corruption - students thought there should be tougher laws on corrupt officials
- On poverty - the British students offered to write to the Prime Minister asking him what the British Government is doing to help reduce poverty in Uganda
The overall consensus was that both groups of students found the event extremely interesting and informative and that it has helped to take their partnership project even further. They plan to share photographs and video of the link-up and to continue exploring ways in which they can collaborate with each other.
About DFID's Global School Partnerships (DGSP)
The world our children are growing up in today is smaller than ever. Never before have our lives been so interlinked and interdependent. Learning about global issues helps children to understand their place in the world and become global citizens and one of the best ways is to experience the world first hand.
DFID Global School Partnerships (DGSP) promotes partnerships between schools in the UK and schools in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. It supports teachers and students from UK and around the world to learn together about global development issues and to become active global citizens.
The scheme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) and delivered by a consortium of the British Council, Cambridge Education Foundation, UK One World Linking Association (UKOWLA) and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, says,
"Building young people's awareness about international development is vitally important. It encourages real understanding about our interdependent world. Through building links between schools in the UK and the developing world, DFID’s Global School Partnerships Programme is an effective way of raising awareness about these issues.
“Participating schools have told us that the partnership has had a significant impact on increasing pupils’ interest and understanding of development. Many have commented that the close connection pupils and teachers feel with partner schools has inspired them to want to learn more, and importantly do more, about the challenges faced by developing countries."