Global Education Derby offers a wide variety of support for local youth workers
who want help preparing young people to live and work in a diverse, rapidly changing
society with its complex challenges and demands. Information about our resource
library, training programmes and current youth projects can be found elsewhere on
this website.
We are an accredited Development Education Centre, one of a network of similar centres
across the country. If you are not based in the Derby/Derbyshire area then you can
find contact details of your nearest centre on the Think Global website www.think-global.org.uk and click on the Our Network button.
You will find more information on Global Youth Work behind the buttons on the right
hand side of this page. But first a few introductory words of guidance:
The purpose of global youth work is to increase young people's ability to critically
analyse local and global issues, make informed decisions and become responsible
global citizens, developing the skills, attitudes and knowledge to play an active
role in UK society and internationally.
First of all don’t panic. You don’t have to be an expert on global issues, or to
have travelled the world, you can learn as you go. You just need the passion to
deliver good youth work that aims to raise awareness of the globalised world, its
history, and the rich diversity of its peoples, particularly in terms of issues
of equity and justice.
Global youth work is not a new topic to get your head around, but is a new dimension
to add to the good work that you are already doing with young people. A global dimension
can be incorporated into almost any conversation that comes up in the youth club
setting, over the coffee bar, on the park or on a trip, for example:
- Sexual health – the world spread of AIDS, differing global birth control and abortion
laws or even laws and attitudes in relation to homosexuality
- Drugs – looking at where different drugs come from, different attitudes to drugs
globally.
- Employment – child labour, human rights, the UN convention on the Rights of the
Child
A few pointers to get started:
- Start with the young people, helping them to identify with themselves in new ways,
use photography, art, questionnaires and quizzes. Find out what there interests
are and concerns for the world they live in.
- Explore their local community, look at the influences from around the world, business,
restaurants and take-aways, places of worship or even the makes of cars.
- Make any work fun, interesting and relevant. There is nothing to stop young people
from just walking away from what you are doing if they are not interested. This
is one of the reasons why working with young people through voluntary relationships
is not always easy.
- Don’t be too serious and depressing in the issues that you explore. We know that
there is a lot of suffering and injustice in the world, but there are also a lot
of good and exciting things happening such as international sporting events, for
example the Olympics. You couldn’t get more global than this if you tried. Even
this great event offers you the opportunity to explore the injustices of the world,
for example, look at the sponsorship involved, the hosting country, the equipment
and sports clothing: Who makes these? How much were they paid for their work? Where
do they come from?