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Student contest Who Else?

02.03.2010 / Jana Toužimská

This year one of the activities of the Watch and Change project is an international contest for students from secondary schools in the four participating coutries Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Slovakia. The students will be asked to submit sugestions (themes) for a social commercial dealing with a global issue, such as migration, development aid or natural disasters. The contest is called Who Else?, because it signifies the „Who else, if not you?!“ idea. In the Czech Republic, the topic will focus on student civic engagement and participation in the local affairs. The contest will be announced during the documentary film festival One World which starts on the 10th of March. In order to assist participants with writing the suggestions in a certain form, there will be an on-line tutorial posted on the web. The best suggestions for the social spot will be sent to the annual One World film clubs summer school, which will take place in Slovakia in summer 2010. The main prize is a digital videocamera. More information and the above mentioned tutorial are coming soon.

New activities in the spring

22.02.2010 / Jana Toužimská

The Watch and change project has come to its final year and we are preparing to make it as interesting and full of new activities as the previous two years. There will be a few events which are offered to students and teachers on annual basis, such as seminars for teachers and university students (pedagogical faculties) in April, student screenings during the One World film festival in March or the summer school for film club students. There are also some new activities which have been prepared for students of secondary schools - most importantly the "Who Else?" contest! In this contest the students will enter a suggestion for a theme of a social commercial. The theme should focus on how young people can be active in the area of social issues, whether locally or globally. The best themes will be filmed during the film summer school in August 2010 and screened publically. More about this contest will be announced in March during the documentary film festival One World students screenings.

One World Film Festival School Screenings

11.02.2010 / Jana Toužimská

This year again, during the months of March and April, the One world in schools program has prepared school screenings of documentary films during the One World human rights documentary film festival. In Prague and all other 29 participating cities where festival will take place there will be screenings of specially chonen documentaries organized for students of elementary and secondary schools. Younger students will be able to watch shorter, approx. one-hour long screenings of shorter films. For students from secondary schools we have chosen four longer, one-hour films and two shorter documents. Teachers will be informed about the opportunity to attend the festival school screenings via email within the next few weeks. We are again expecting larger numbers of students than in 2009, when over 46 000 children and young people attended the school screenings in all the participating cities.

New Educational Materials

25.01.2010 / Jana Toužimská

There were two new materials produced in the past two months at One World in Schools. The first one was published together with the Czech TV and was again touching on the popular topic of Czechoslovak history – Stories of Injustice –Behind the Iron Curtain. The set contains a DVD with 11 short films and a methodical material together with worksheets, activities and questions and answers to each of the films.
The second material is a booklet called Teachers´ notebook, which contains confessions of teachers, their experiences and practical tips on using documentary films in classrooms. The Teachers´ notebook further describes students´and teachers´evaluation of their experiences of using films in the classrooms. There is more to come in the spring 2010!

Watch and Change Project International Newsletter

04.01.2010 / Jana Toužimská

In order to share experiences amongst each other as well as with the wider public the international partners of the Watch and Change project compile a newsletter which contains examples of good practices and successful events of the consortium partners from each country. Please see the link above to read the details.

Happy holidays!

28.12.2009 / Jana Toužimská

We would like to wish happy holidays and all the best into the new year to all our students, teachers, partners and projects colleagues ! May it be filled with new and wonderful experiences!

International meeting of One World Film Club organizers

15.12.2009 / Lukáš Gajdoš

From 11 till 13 December the International meeting of One World Film Club organizers from partner countries Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia and Romania took place in the Prague. The main theme of the meeting was intercultural communication. This meeting was also used to exchange experiences among the film club organizers and project coordinators. The program of the meeting included a lively discussion with guest Jana Hybášková about Islam and Muslims. The second guest Marek Čejka explained the details about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Hana Krejsová from the AFS organization prepared a very interesting workshop about the intercultural communication, where students could learn about diversity and valuing cultural differences.
Photos from the meeting can be found here.

Steering Group Bratislava

01.12.2009 / Jana Toužimská

National coordinators of the international project Watch and Change have come to Bratislava to share experience and plan future activities for the third and last project year. On November 23rd and 24th, project coordinators from Poland, Estonia, Slovakia and Czech Republic met in the partner organization People in peril to speak about the progress of the project on the national level as well as to discuss future international cooperation possibilities. During the second day of meetings there was also a visit scheduled to high school for children with physical disabilities who planned a project day on the HIV/AIDS theme. Please see photos from the international steering group here.

Stories of injustice – now in your school!

13.11.2009 / Jana Toužimská

For five consecutive years has November been the month of Stories of Injustice – a month of film in schools. This year again schools can free-of-charge choose a film focusing on the Czechoslovak history from the documentary film library kept by the One World in Schools. For this year, due to the increase of the populist neonacionalistic political events of the recent months, we have chosen the theme of holocaust. During the opening ceremony of Stories of Injustice - month of film in schools in the movie theater Svetozor in downtown Prague, the awards of Stories of Injustice were given to three individuals who with their courage, each in their own way, stood up against the communist regime. 

Each school which takes part in this project will also get many bonus materials with the chosen film which will be screened in the classrooms.The only condition for schools to get involved in this project is to organize one screening with a subsequent debate during the month of November 2009. For more information please see the web page of Stories of Injustice.

World Aware Education Award

26.10.2009 / Jana Toužimská

The One World in Schools has received the World Aware Education Award, given by the North-South Center of the European Council. The award seeks to recognize and support projects which promote the integration of global development education into the formal and non-formal educational systems, display excellence in networking, coordination and partnership building. The award ceremony happened on Friday October 23, 2009 at the European Development Days Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The project team would like to congratulate to all partners and stakeholders involved in the project and to all project coordinators whose creative ways of thinking have contributed to this achievement.

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