Charles Dickens was a masterful storyteller of social problems of his day who challenged Victorian aristocracy and elites to journey into workhouses and slums through his novels
image: We Can Do It poster by Howard J. Miller (1943) Yesterday UK newspaper The Observer updated its The 10 Best… series by launching the 10 best female pioneers of all time. In their opinion the top 10 female pioneers of trailblazing women, from suffragettes to style icons are:
Those familiar with this website will not be surprised by the topic of our new animation – on consumption. It accompanies the ethical consumption and hunger modules for teachers and educators, as well as general readers, plus previous blog posts, new resource annotations and the ecological footprinting project work. Let
Source: IMG_5419 by controlarms, Flickr I don’t know about yours but my dictionary suggests that the word consensus means ‘general agreement’ or ‘majority opinion’. The reason I raise the issue is that over the past month, negotiators from some 170 countries have been discussing a UN arms treaty, which needed
How can we feed the world—today and tomorrow? The biggest players in the food industry—from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers—spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but selling the idea that we need their products to feed the world. But, do we
Workshop experiences at the Kerry One World Centre draw the attention of participants to look at the MDGs from an local Irish perspective before taking during One World Week 2012. One World Week is a week of youth-led awareness raising, education and action that takes place throughout Ireland during the
The Irish Presidency of the European Council is well underway – but what does this mean for the development agenda and development education? Siobhán Sleeman investigates the opportunities for young people and the public to participate in building the post-Millennium Development Goals framework.
Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) are those that are not passed from person to person. Often, they are referred to as chronic diseases, in that they progress slowly and have a long duration – think diabetes, stroke, asthma, heart attack, obesity, high blood pressure, cancer. These are not the classic ‘diseases of poverty’
****Note: the consultation has been extended until Friday 17th January 2014. More information at the NCCA CSPE consultation online**** ___________________________________________________________________ The need for citizens to respond to the social, political and economic ills in Ireland has never been greater. Many years of rapid economic growth and political administration over the
Recent debates on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and on the measurement of human development have highlighted a series of highly significant and life enhancing developments as regards people’s most basic human needs in recent decades. Despite ongoing injustice and inequality (the latter increasing year on year) millions of the
Earlier this month, you may have seen our top 10 good news stories from 2013 we published. What follows covers some aspects of the other side of the coin. In order to understand the context of ‘good news’, we need to situate it alongside its opposite. Here are 10 bad
Bob is back. Sir Bob I mean. And so is Christmas! And so is Band Aid. Is it really 3 decades since celebrities across the globe revealed to an unsuspecting world that “there won’t be snow in Africa” and “do they know it’s Christmas” anyway (my emphasis)? What’s ironic to
Photo: third world exploitation poster spotted in Toronto (Jan 26, 2013) by Mary Crandall. CC NC-ND 2.0 license via Flickr Recent years have witnessed many ongoing calls for a ‘definitive definition’ of development education (DE) and failing that for abandoning the term in favour of, inter alia, human rights education,
Where does one even begin to unpack the new sustainable development goals (SDGs)? When in doubt of what to think I always refer to the great Edward De Bono, thinking philosopher extraordinaire. De Bono created the ‘Six thinking hats’ tool to aid people to think fully and clearly about anything
The Mini-NGOs in schools initiative is part of the Global Citizens Network Project in 2013-14. Less Charity – more Justice!We wanted to move beyond ‘charitable’ actions (such as fundraising and one-way notions of “us helping them”) and instead focus on social justice with proper reflection and engagement involving exchanges with
The Famine Walk project is an annual walk commemorating those who died in the Irish Famine and about linking the famine experience in Ireland with contemporary issues of famine and food insecurity in the world. It aims to raise awareness about current injustices by reflecting on our own historical experience.
Peadar Cremin – teacher, lecturer in education; professor, college president, curriculum developer, activist, colleague and close friend sadly died on November 30th last year. As a tribute to him and his work in development education and related areas, we are publishing four blogs – the initial one below by Colm
Markwin Kobus presents an eye witness account as a volunteer at the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp near the French port of Calais through photos and diary extracts he recorded between 28 February and 3rd March in 2016, originally published in the South Dublin/Wicklow Calais Solidarity Public Group. Day 1 The first
This blog was written to stimulate discussion at an Irish Development Education Association seminar in Dublin on 4th May 2016. It is based upon my own thinking about what has been achieved over the past three decades, some trends and patterns I see dominating at the moment (not all positive)
‘Sensationalised poverty media’ has usually been referenced as ‘poverty porn’ in discussions on development issues, but I have purposefully decided to not use this term as I find it a sensationalised term which distracts from the debate. Furthermore, it may be unsuitable for some readers of this blog. When I
‘By directly empowering poor people, particularly women, Microcredit has become one of the key driving mechanisms towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals’ The focus of this resource is on the role of microcredit and Credit Unions in supporting the poor to break out of the cycle of poverty. The resource
This short whiteboard resource explores issues relating to drought, famine, food and the geography of the crisis in East Africa. Designed as a teacher resource for primary schools, it uses Trócaire’s responses to the crisis in order to illustrate actions as stories for pupils to explore and engage with. Through
Part 1: Trade and the Right to Food (4:40mins) Part 2: Rural Livelihoods and Global Markets (7:27mins) Part 3: Families, Agriculture and Food (5:10mins) The resource has been written to compliment Civic, Social and Political Education curricula (CSPE). It contains: classroom and lesson plans; a DVD with video footage of
For more see poverty and hunger resources on the Trócaire website for educators. Other Trócaire resources in the ‘Focus on’ series: Focus on Climate Change: Senior Primary/Key Stage 2 Educator’s Resource Focus on Fair Trade: Senior Primary/Key Stage 2 Educator’s Resource
Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities and countries to define their own agricultural, pastoral, labour, fishing and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the right to food and to produce food, where people have the right to safe,
Pamoja provides a model for teachers and students to promote human rights and development education within their school. The teachers and students taking part carry out awareness-raising activities based around Trócaire’s Lenten theme. Past themes have focused on Climate Change in Kenya, Gender Inequality in Malawi and Hunger in Rwanda.
Climate Change is divided into three manageable and informative sections. Using graphs, photographs, illustrations and facts, Climate Change aims to broaden secondary level student’s knowledge on the issue. Section one – Understanding Climate – explores the different terminologies and definitions under the term ‘climate’. It also focuses on what human
Child Labour is divided into seven comprehensive sections and designed in an attractive manner with pie charts, well laid out diagrams, maps and information boxes for use by teachers and students and general readers. The first section two sections focus on A History of Child Labour and Child Labour Today.
This resource aims to prepare and engage students to recognise the increasingly interconnected nature of their lives with the lives of those in developing countries. This resource will therefore enable students to reflect on their role as global citizens. The pack contains 10 classroom activities, photo resources, lesson plans and
The Irish Girl Guides has produced a badge and syllabus for Ladybirds, Brownies and Guides on development education (DE). The three resources cover a wide range of core human development and human rights issues in an accessible way for young people through a series of tried and tested DE activities,