“Rabbi, who is my neighbour?”

Making young people aware of the notion of Global Citizenship teaches them values about their own roles in life in relation to other people, and appreciating them for who they are. This powerful message was conveyed to the first group of sixty five Namibian teachers earlier this month when the attended the first Global Citizenship workshop hosted by the British Council. The two-day workshop at the Goethe Centre was followed by a one-day Information Communication Technology (ICT) workshop on at A.I. Steenkamp Primary School in Windhoek. The British Council in Namibia has been chosen as one of the pioneers by its mother organisation, British Council Global, to roll out the new international phenomenon, known as Global Citizenship.  Global Citizenship has a two-pronged approach in its bid to equip children and educators to ensure that they know who they are in relation to other people and also that they appreciate other people for who they are. This ensures that children do not feel incompetent but relevant wherever they find themselves on the globe, irrespective of their gender, colour or creed and promotes global interdependence.

Global Citizenship explores in great detail themes like identity and belonging; fairness, equity and equality; rights and responsibilities; sustainable living; conflict and peace.
It also offers a Continuing Professional Development suite for the teachers which includes on-line courses like Introduction to International Learning, Inter-cultural Practices, Our Partnership Journey and Deeper Understanding of Global Citizenship.  Within this suite is the partnership with schools in the U.K. which seeks to establish symbiotic relationships where both sides benefit from each other through co-planning and co-evaluation of the teaching learning process and exchange programmes for teachers and learners.
The British Council said more workshops of this nature are earmarked for other regions during the second and third school terms this year.