LEMONOC-Newsletter (June)
Review
The LEMONOC-team shares experiences, insights and literature. This section reports on conferences, publications and events.
Learning to Live Together. Students present at OECD. (by UCLL, PIEC, BE)
According to UNESCO, Global Citizenship Education nurtures respect for all, builds a sense of belonging to a common humanity and fosters a sense of responsibility to become active global citizens. It aims to empower learners to assume active roles to face and resolve global challenges and to proactively contribute to a more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure world. Keeping the recent developments on the global and local level, ‘Living Together’ especially in inclusive societies becomes a challenge and a goal.
Learning to live together is highly dependent on Learning HOW to live together. It begins by understanding and accepting other people’s histories, cultures, traditions and values. People, however, have often the tendency to overestimate their own abilities, or those of the group to which they belong, and entertain prejudices against those who are different than themselves. Furthermore, the general climate of competition that prevails in both national and international economies tends to turn competitiveness and personal success into values to be achieved at all costs. Hence, how can we overcome these tendencies and how can we ‘learn to live together’?
An attempt to find answers was made by the multi-cultural group of the PIEC Postgraduate International Educating Class (UCLL, Belgium) during the past Spring semester. This programme is the result of an unique collaboration between UNESCO and UC Leuven-Limburg. In the course Capacity Building and Innovation, students designed and developed four projects that aimed at discovering and building the capacity of the other through the heart of education: the UNESCO pillar Learning to Live Together. Read more
The PIEC students also presented various possible ’Scenarios for Living in 2030’ to members of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), CERI (Center for Educational Research and Innovation) and the PISA study. They debated on how living and education might look in 15 years and were evaluated on their thinking. Lively discussions ensued about possible solutions for rising income inequality, religious radicalization, social well-being and the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence, where the students were required to defend their positions. Read more about their trip to Paris
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In practice
The network aims to inspire sustainable and reciprocal Learning mobility. For this purpose a set of guiding criteria were elaborated and ordered in the LEMONOC Matrix. This section makes these criteria concrete through examples and good practices.
What is Service Learning? Theewaterskloof as a good practice. (by HAN, NL)
Service Learning is a type of experimental learning in which students apply their academic knowledge and critical thinking skills to address community needs. The major components of service learning include: active participation, thoughtfully organization, focus on community needs, reflection, and a strong sense for others. UC Leuven-Limburg incorporates the concept in its international work placements. One of our close partners, HAN University of Applied Sciences, has been working with Service Learning for many years.
Every year 50 to 60 HAN students do an internship of 4 to 10 months based on service learning in the Theewaterskloof in South Africa. All projects in this program work conform 3 criteria: sustainability, quality and cost-effectiveness. Sustainability refers to the effect on and involvement of the various role‐players in the community. All projects are demand driven. Both, students and communities, take full ownership. On the second hand, all projects aim to improve the quality of life at all levels. And thirdly the projects have a functional planning, systematical implementation and guaranteed evaluation and reflection. The community participates in all stages of the project and, of course, projects must be affordable within the reach of available funds.
The learning impact on students is impressive. Students not only develop professional skills, they became also more capable in working together, in dealing with people from a totally different culture and gained independence and self-confidence. In short, they broadened their world view and could contextualize things from a totally different perspective. The Vice-Chancellor of HAN University, Kees Boele, finds ‘Bildung’ an essential aspect of education: “You don’t only educate people; you also want them to become wiser, to learn to think for themselves, independently and critically”
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Featuring
The LEMONOC network is a part of a broader movement working on sharing expertise and experiences between the Global North and Global South. This rubric features a particular organization, network or initiative that works on mutual learning.
ADICE, mobility for all youngsters (F)
ADICE is a support program in Roubaix, who works on social promotion of job seekers and immigrants with fewer opportunities. ADICE considers mobility as a powerful way to enable youngsters to acquire social, professional and intercultural competences. Certainly for adolescents who come from disadvantaged areas or isolated rural districts, an international experience is very enriching. Therefore ADICE creates the opportunity for everyone to participate in International training and mobility programs inside and outside of Europe, without charging, except personal expenses.
Very important is the step-by-step approach of the organization. In an early stage ADICE encourages people first to undertake a short term activity before committing to a long term project. The aim is to arise curiosity to cultures abroad, to develop self-confidence and to overcome language barriers.
During ADICE-projects awareness, participation and research are the keywords. Participants work in a professional environment according to their skills and are stimulated investigate the circumstances they live and work in. The aim is to develop professional, social and intercultural competences. Undertaking this project enables the participating youngsters to leave their surroundings, take responsibility, improve their ability to make important decisions and get involved in the local community.
Individual coaching and support adapted to the personal needs of the participant is essential in the work of ADICE. The priority is to match volunteers with a project that correspondents with the background and expectations of the participant. Therefore ADICE developed several programs such as the Civil Service-program in which youngsters work on missions in cooperation within the government or nonprofit organizations. Another program is the European Voluntary Service program, which foresees voluntary programs abroad. The themes can vary from culture and leisure, education, environment, citizenship to health and also the duration can be short (2 weeks to 2 months) or long term (2-12 months).
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Calls, discussion & Adds
The Lemonoc-network is willing to challenge comments, potentials and ideas from stakeholders. All kind of announcements, discussions, notices, calls are getting place in this section.
Post-graduate International Educating Class (PIEC, Belgium)
This Postgraduate on education turns the traditional western model of development studies upside down. Instead of sending an inexperienced young person to developing country to ‘help them’, PIEC brings students from both low and high income countries together as equals, to discuss, debate and tackle issues facing a global and globalizing world. The idea is that students from developing countries acquire skills, which they can use back in their home countries, but also western students are allowed to face their own prejudices through real engagement with colleagues from so-called developing countries about the complexities of and western bias built into various conceptions of ‘development’. The program propounds UNESCOs 4 pillars of Education and its five programme sector themes.Through methods like scenario planning, participatory research, cooperative learning, project management, reflection and appreciative inquiry, educators are challenged to find new ways to creatively respond to the current needs of their work environments and to think up plausible courses of positive, innovative action for the future.
Aarthi Srinivasan, an Indian student in 2016, testifies: ‘PIEC empowered each one of us as entrepreneurs, educators, students and individuals. The holistic approach of the course ensures that each student gains a broader perspective on the future of education and what ideal education could become. … This course surely gave me both new friends and another family. I learned, I laughed, I grew. And yes, I can surely say that the Postgraduate International Educating Class gave me far more than ‘education’. Read the full testimony
The LEMONOC Seminar & Scan
The LEMONOC Seminar is a workshop developed for European higher education institutions that wish to reflect and improve their practices in learning mobility with the Global South. During the seminar our team analyses with your colleagues the qualitative learning mobility and offers an interactive dialogue between participants and coaches.
The seminar can be organised institutional or more locally, across different institutions. The fee for a one day seminar is 1500 Euro (travel and subsistence included).
The Lemonoc team invites all stakeholders also to enrich their programs through the Lemonoc-scan and the online research center.