Project updates

Project to boost parents' education advocacy skills in six countries

The Empowerment of Parents' Influence on Education at National, Regional and International Levels, a RE:FINE project, was implemented between 2006 and 2008 by a joint partnership comprising the Tajik Association of Critical Thinking (TACT), the School-Family-Society Association, Georgia (SFSA), the Center for Innovations in Education, Azerbaijan (CIE), the Public Association "Pro Reflexive Communication, Reading and Writing", Moldova (PRCRW), the Educational Centre, Turkmenistan (EC), and the National Parents Forum of Lithuania and "New Connections" Association as lead partner. The European Parents Association (EPA) Project contributed with expertise.

The project aimed to empower parents with knowledge and skills needed for advocacy in education. Parents as the main target group learned effective advocacy strategies and applied them in practice in their national contexts. They shared their expertise with partners, participated in joint advocacy training sessions with external consultants, and planned advocacy actions and campaigns. The project focused on building capacity and resources in these partner countries in order to give parents' groups the knowledge and skills to advocate their children's affairs in the education sector.

During the two-year project period 762 parents, parent trainers, and consultants were actively involved in project activities. In-country teams developed comprehensive advocacy portfolios including surveys, research documents, local and international training materials, practical publications, brochures, and leaflets, articles in local newspapers, radio and TV materials.

Fore more information please contact Daiva Penkauskiene, Project Coordinator:
daiva.penkauskiene@sdcentras.lt

ESP supports educational activities related to the trial of the murder of a South African lesbian

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project in South Africa has been following the trial in the murder of Eudy Simelane (31), a former Banyana-Banyana soccer player, and an out lesbian. Her body was found stabbed and mutilated in an open field in Kwa-Thema township on 28 April 2008. Five young men were initially arrested, and four of them stood trial at the Delmas Circuit Court in Mpumalanga in February. This is the second case to come to trial of the killing of a lesbian over her sexual orientation. It represents a groundbreaking opportunity to bring to the public domain the continuous discrimination and hate crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex people in today's democratic South Africa.

This and other related crimes have been reported by the Guardian recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/12/eudy-simelane-corrective-rape-south-africa.

The Education Support Program (ESP) provided support for the costs of mobilization and educational activities linked to the trial, such as bringing delegations of young high school students to the trial to participate in and help to organize workshops and meetings.

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (www.equality.org.za) - formerly the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality - is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that works towards achieving full legal and social equality for lesbian, transgender, gay and bisexual people in South Africa.

For more information and providing donations, please contact Phumzile Mtetwa: phumi@equality.org.za; admin@equality.org.za

Teachers use seminar to prepare for summer North Caucasus youth camp

An ongoing project of the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of Development, Russia, is the Interregional Educational Camp for Children of the North Caucasus, with the aim of holding an annual interregional camp (summer school) in one of the regions of the North Caucasus. At the camps schoolchildren learn multicultural tolerant behavior skills. The project has two components: organizing a session for teachers from four target schools and student team leaders, and holding a summer interregional camp for 40 children of the North Caucasus region.

On January 19-23, 2009 the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of Development hosted a seminar for 19 participants (13 school teachers from Ingushetiya, North Ossetia-Alaniya and Kabardino-Balkaria, four experts, and two consultants). Seminar members developed the summer camp program and teachers received training in leadership and multicultural education with interactive methods.

Contact the coordinator of the North Caucasus projects supported by ESP, Irina Molodikova (molodiko@ceu.hu), or go to the IPPR websites for more information and discussions on the youth camp and project work: http://www.ippd.ru/index.php?name=Pages&op=page&pid=141 and forum http://www.ippd.ru/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1298#1298.

Online discussions address issues on Open Education resources

The redesigned Open Policy Forum (OPF) provides a platform for ongoing interactive discussions on the policy implications of information and communication technology in general education in countries across the world. OPF's current focus is on discussion and explaining opinions on issues such as the use of open source software and provision of open source educational materials. Similarly to the Cape Town Declaration, the Open Policy Forum focuses on the critical role of Open Education resources to improve education access and quality.

Every month, the forum opens discussions on two new topics in English and one topic in Slovak. For each topic, experts are asked to provide their opinions and start the discussion. The first topics in English are:

• open source and the global revolution in teaching and learning;
• benefits of open education for students, teachers, administrators, and governments.

To join the discussions, please visit www.openpolicyforum.net

New website launched on education issues in transitional countries

Transitions Online (TOL) has launched a new website called Chalkboard (http://chalkboard.tol.org), dedicated to news and analysis of education issues in transitional countries. The project is funded by the Open Society Institute's Education Support Program.

Chalkboard's offerings include:

• Highlights of the key obstacles and success stories in education reform, from critical thinking skills, to teacher training, corruption and curriculum development.
• A database of Transitions Online's articles on education in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
• The "Snapshots of Reform" series: overviews of the education reform process in 32 countries, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, South East Asia and Africa.
• Resources, tools and information for journalists to help with writing engaging news and feature stories on education topics.

Transitions (www.tol.org), a nonprofit organization based in Prague, supports the development of a strong, independent media in the 29 post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Questions about Chalkboard or about writing for TOL should be addressed to the project manager, Kristy Ironside: ironsidek@tol.org