Global Issues Club

Below you will find a video created by Bill Faren, a teacher working in the Dominican Republic. It raises many good questions and should be a great starting point for our discussions about sustainability. We will watch the video as a group at our next meeting and have a face-to-face conversation about his message, but if you get a chance, watch it here and start the questions in the comment section.

That goes for other student bloggers who have happened to have made their way to our site. Let’s see what students think about the job their schools are doing!

If we are lucky, we may be able to use the power of networking to allow Bill answer some of our questions on this blog, or perhaps he can Skype into a meeting and join our talk. Remember, do not just watch the video- share your thoughts!

You can  read more on the subject here, and I have asked Lindsea from Students 2.0 to join our discussion. Give her a visit and share your thoughts.

Hello ASD Global Issues Club members and other readers of this blog. Although we are extremely busy preparing for our conference in Düsseldorf and thinking about Earth Hour, some students in the US need our help. Please read the request below and follow the links to educate yourself about Darfur. Let’s see if we can add our voices on March 6th.

Many Voices for Darfur is a global k-12 collaboration project to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur. It’s super easy to participate.

For 48 hours, starting at midnight EST on March 6th, many student voices will be collected in the name of those suffering in Darfur. We are asking k-12 students around the world to visit our Many Voices for Darfur blog and leave thoughtful, well-written comments. It is our hope that hundreds or even thousands of students will come together to help raise awareness about the first genocide of the 21st century. Be sure that your voice is among them.

For more specific directions CLICK HERE. We’ve created a Darfur Resources Wiki Page for students and teachers that want to learn more about Darfur before March 6th.
Many Voices for Darfur Blog
Many Voices for Darfur Wiki

Sometimes when we are engaged in activism, fundraising, or raising awareness, we forget the impact our work has on the very people we are trying to help. It is always a good idea to keep the bigger picture in mind as we move forward. Here are a few pictures from the people we are working with. These are young children who are the next generation of Ethiopians, they are ones who will directly benefit form our work. It is for them that we are building this school. I urge you to look at these pictures often for inspiration.

We would also love for you to leave a comment on how these pictures make you feel. Share your thoughts, feelings, or ideas. Write a poem, send them a quick hello, give life to these images with your words. The commitment has been made, now we work…

We recently received the following letter from Michael Pelletier at the American International School of Riyadh. He asked that we share their work with you, our students:

Dear Teachers and Students from around the world;

Technology With A Cause is a club created by students at the American International School of Riyadh. Our goals are:

• To use technology as a catalyst for public awareness, discussion and appropriate action on social issues within our local, regional and global community.
• To Inspire and promote “Humane Education” amongst educators around the world through discussion and practical examples.

There is an important and global event taking place on March 29th, 2008

Watch Earth Hour here. AIS-R will be a part of this from 9:30 am to 10:30 am as a school community. We would like you to join us by promoting the event and having all of your students and teachers understand why this is important. Our weekends in Saudi are Thursday and Friday. Since EARTH HOUR is on a Saturday we will be participating at school. For most of you it will be a weekend so plan to do something at home.

We have created a Blog for all of you to join. Please post comments about how you will participate. Also, after the event we would like to see how much ENERGY everybody saved!!!!!!

Please join us by posting a comment cheering everybody on and getting involved. If you are not interested send it to a teacher or student who might be. Our hope is to have thousands of International School participants. So far we have 850 from AISR – HOW ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!!

End of Letter

So what do you think? Their goals seem pretty close to somethings we are working on. What can we do? Please send a comment of encouragement here and then let’s see what we can do. Perhaps we can have a candle lit dinner at school and raise funds for A-Cet. Or maybe you have other ideas. Get more info at the Earth Hour website. Start the conversation here now. Leave a comment below.

Hello to all Global Issues Club members.and readers of this blog. As we come off the success of our visit from Claire and Bisrat, it is time to switch gears a bit and begin preparation for our Global Issues Network Conference in Düsseldorf this March.

They have asked that we research and learn as much as we can about the main theme this year, which is sustainability. Here is what they have sent us:

“Sustainable development” statement for GIN Conference

“It is people who do development, not governments, and therefore sustainable development is a local activity. All people, however poor, have some ability, however constrained, of changing what they do, in small ways.”
Source: Garrett Nagle, “Development”- Hodder Murray

Please research this BEFORE the event so that you can discuss this statement during the conference. Just bear in mind that this statement gives a starting point to the discussion and that there can be many ways to address the problems around sustainability at local or international level.

Please also remember that your objective is to find solutions to these problems and to include them in your school’s Action Plan as much as possible. The idea being that this plan will be implemented when you are back in your own school after the conference…

Definition of sustainable development:

Development that improves basic standards of living without compromising the needs of future generations. This takes in economic issues, ecological concepts, sociological principles and moral rights.
- Garrett Nagle (“Development”)

The four dimensions to sustainable development generally quoted are:

• social
• economic
• environmental
• institutional

Before we start researching and learning about what sustainability means, please leave a comment on this post about what you think the term means to you. In the coming weeks, we will work with you to arrive at a more polished and sophisticated response, but in the meantime- what do you think it means for something to be sustainable?