ODEC projectsODEC projectsThis project is giving local children who are also refugees the opportunity to share their culture and experiences with other students and with their teachers. Through circle time and stories all the children involved are learning to respect each other and value their differences. They are making a bilingual book for their school and will run an assembly to show the whole school how they have been working together. Journeys and Stories is run by Eleanor Kercher in partnership with staff at Pegasus first school, Oxford.
Based at Isis middle school, Oxford, Our Voice involves a group of children from different cultural backgrounds. Together they are exploring what they mean by equality and investigating the history of South Asia. They are making resources for their peers to fit national curriculum requirements. Our Voice is run by Eleanor Kercher and Khalid Sharif.
Using the Internet - Development On-line
One of development education's aims is to foster students' sense of belonging to an interdependent, international community. The Internet offers a living example of just such a community.
From January to July 1996 ODEC helped staff and students at Cherwell school, Oxford, to write their own WEB pages for an international school's project, Cyberfair 96. As well as introducing Cherwell to other young people from the 300 plus schools who entered the event, students researched the situation of refugees and homeless people in their community and tackled issues like racism in sport.
Most "global" schools' projects on the Net do not include the majority of children around the world - those in ordinary schools in Southern countries. Here is a South African school that has managed to get over technical and financial barriers and create their own Web site.
The Internet makes alternative sources of information accessible. Where else could you get an up to the second count of the world's population, for example?
But there are problems, too. Most people in Southern countries do not have access to the technology, even given the efforts of organisations like GreenNet who specialise in getting Southern community groups on-line. Useful information can get buried in mounds of trivia.
The development on-line project aims to investigate just how useful the new technology is for development education. At the moment we are working with a school, a community group and other development education centres to see what the problems and opportunities are.
If you are using the Internet for development education or popular education we would love to swap experiences with you!
Small World Theatre
Small World Theatre run puppet plays in schools to raise awareness of development issues. Their current production is called Moving and is about Vietnamese refugees. Pippa Bobbett at ODEC is evaluating the usefulness of the visits for teachers, to produce a report for Save the Children. If you are interested in booking Small World, contact ODEC.
Our Journey Home - back to our roots in the history of South Asia
This project involved a group of young British Asian women (and one man!) making an exhibition about the independence movement in South Asia. They designed their work as a schools resource for 14 to 18 year olds.
The exhibition covers:
Panels include copies of original photographs and documents from the British Library's records and comments from each member of the group about why discovering their history was important to them.
Our Journey Home is available for hire, e-mail us if you would like it. An evaluation of the project with advice for educators interested in doing something similar is available free from ODEC, send an SAE please to:
ODEC, EOCC, Princes St., Oxford, OX4 1DD
All Equal Different
Melissa Latchman and Marsha Jackson are young people in charge of All Equal, All Different. With a group of volunteers they are planning and running anti-racist projects with other young people locally.
Learning from Life
This ODEC project is a partnership with Oxford's West Indian Day Centre and with ACTIONAID's international education department. Learning from Life supports African Caribbean people who want to make changes in their community. It also brings older and younger people together to share their issues and plans.
To help people learn from each other we are experimenting with adapting ACTIONAID's radical REFLECT approach to adult literacy. REFLECT links literacy and community development and is being used successfully in over 30 countries.
We are keen to swap experiences with any other groups who are trying to use radical adult education techniques from Majority World countries for community development work in Europe. Let us know what you are doing!