by Aminata BA
DEEEP is a project of the DARE (Development Awareness Raising and Education) Forum of CONCORD, the European Development NGO confederation.
As facilitator of the European education sector, DEEEP aims to strengthen the European civil society to adopt new transformative approaches for development and education through active global citizenship. We already reported specifically on the conference on global justice through global citizenship in November 2013 in Brussels.
To this effect, DEEEP had collaborated as a driving force with other organisations and initiatives to organise three major conferences to explore global citizenship, the challenges and opportunities.
Clearly, the multitude of causes and contexts would not allow to come up with immediate and universal answers during the three years duration of the project. But the intra-European and international exchange processes allowed to take a measure of the diversity and commonalities that should enable more collective action on common objectives and learning about successful approaches even for more locally or regionally-specific causes.
That was an encouragement to keep working on global education as a major foundation for living peacefully together. Click here for the proposals of the Brussels conference on global citizenship.
The 28 and 29 October 2015, The DEEEP project organised its “Grand Finale Conference” before the end of the project, which had started in March 2013.
The conference objectives were to:
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Create a collective learning space for harvesting the best lessons from Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) based on practitioners experiences,
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Celebrate the European DEAR network and reinforce a sense of community around education and awareness raising for global justice and transformational change.
The event started with a welcome dinner the Wednesday 28 October at the” Cercle des Voyageurs” where participants had an opportunity for an informal get together and discussion.
The opening speech was delivered by Nomvula Diamini from the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) in South Africa with its Barefoot Connection. She argued that education is the key for activism and global change.
The actual Grand Finale conference took place the next day and was masterfully facilitated by Marjeta Novak and Ria Baeck who used a participatory methodology (Appreciative inquiry) to identify the Best of Global Learning.
The 120 participants exchanged their experiences of education awareness and global justice and worked in different small groups on several topics.
The event was rich in learning about achievements and challenges in different countries and contexts. The best moment was without doubt the instant production of the visual harvesting by Nick Peyne. This way, key concepts, lessons and advice were captured and made visible for everybody.
For more information of the Grand Finale Conference see here the visual report. After three passionate years of interactive work there was a touch of nostalgia in the air when thinking about the end of the project and the likely dispersal of the dynamic team. However, the lessons are there to stay and be used in follow-up activities at EU, UNESCO and UN levels and, of course, through the DARE Forum of CONCORD. Meanwhile, check out more of the opportunities and lessons available through the DEEEP library.
We're looking forward to continued developments and associated action.