Portugal:  "Development Education and Global Citizenship: A (multi) Agenda"

On April 12 was held the closing seminar of the project "Global Schools" for Portugal, in which, beside presenting the main outputs and results, the school handbook "Global Schools" was launched. 

The Seminar held last Thursday, April 12, " Development  Education and Global Citizenship: A (multi) Agenda " was attended by more than 160 participants, including students from IPVC (the Higher School of Education) teachers of the partner school clusters, representatives of the Directorate-General for Education and the City Council of Viana do Castelo and general public from the community.

The works were opened by the host, the Director of the Higher School of Education - IPVC, Dr. César Sá, also counting the "opening session" with the presence of Dr. Maria José Guerreiro, Councilor of Educação of the Municipality of Viana do Castelo and of Dr. Hélder Pais, Director of Curriculum Development Services of the Directorate-General for Education. At the end of the session, Professor Luísa Neves - Coordinator of the project Global Schools in Portugal, presented a final summary of the project, with the main outputs and results achieved.

Then, the keynote lecture by the Spanish expert Manuela Mesa followd, under the title “Development Education and the Sustainable Development Goals: an agenda for social transformation”, which, as an inspiring speech, invited us to reflect on the need of Development Education in the context of today's societies and on what the role of education is in this context.

The morning ended with the public presentation of the Global Schools handbook Global Schools. Propostas de integração curricular da Educação para o Desenvolvimento e Cidadania Global no 1.º e 2.º CEB. All the authors present (Ana Barbosa, Eliana Madeira, Gabriela Barbosa, Joana Oliveira, Jorge Cardoso, La Salete Coelho, Luísa Neves, Teresa Gonçalves) used the floor to reflect, in a nutshell, about the challenges, opportunities, feelings, difficulties, of having shared this collaborative process of elaboration. We were happy to have with us also Marlene and Fernando, responsible for the design and layout of the handbook.

The beginning of the afternoon was organised in the 4 Thematic Workshops based on the handbook:

- Workshop 1 - Made in ... what stories do the labels of our clothes hide? - Ana Barbosa

- Workshop 2 - RAP, RAP ... a song and a commitment. - Gabriela Barbosa

- Workshop 3 - The vaccines roulette - play, feel and reflect. - Luísa Neves and Maria de Jesus Ferreira

- Workshop 4 - Rights go crooked or crooked go the rights? - Joana Oliveira

The workshops, as well as the activities experienced, were highly appreciated and highly valued by participants.

Finally, we gave the voice to some of the protagonists of our project to testimony, first hand, some opinions and views about the participation in project.

We have had the following contributions:
- Teresa Almeida - Director of the Cluster of Schools of Barroselas

- Fernanda Pequeno - Multiplying teacher of the Monte da Ola Schools Cluster

- Catarina Oliveira - Graduated by ESE-IPVC in Pre-School Education and 1st CEB Education

- Amanda Franco - Participant in the IX Open Course

- Esperança Gomes - Ex-student of Pintor José de Brito Schools Cluster

- Samaritana Santos Monteiro - Student of the Monte da Ola Schools Cluster, EB de Darque

This final moment was moving and renewed our enthusiasm to embrace the next challenges!

Congratulations to everyone that made it possible!