Development Workers for Development Education
Global Garden Project

The Global Garden Project was developed by GLADE (Somerset's Centre for Global and Development Education) and Somerset Food Links.  In 2005, we established a key partnership to build the capacity of GLADE to take this programme further and embrace an international development perspective in the project.  Skillshare International placed a returned development worker, Ruth Allen, at GLADE in March 2005 to share her skills and knowledge with teachers and pupils.  Ruth had completed her placement as a Skillshare International development worker at Botshelo in Botswana in October 2000. 

Skillshare International's expertise in international development brought to this project a different perspective to sustainable development, food security and human rights.  Returned development workers provide an opportunity for Skillshare International to work with Development Education Centres to ensure that a first hand perspective from developing countries is included in global citizenship education in the UK.

The GLADE project focused on local and global issues that are central to food.  This encompassed social, economic and sustainable development issues.  The project targeted teachers and young people in Somerset. Five schools participated: Crowcombe First School, Chewton Mendip Primary School, Horrington Primary School, Fairlands Middle School and
Whitstone Community Technology College.

At the end of the project, which was facilitated by GLADE and Skillshare International, teachers were able to recognise the links between social justice and global-local food trade.  They focused on global food issues through exchange of skills and knowledge, including case studies from Botswana.  By the end of the project, the pupils in 5 primary schools who had participated in the project:

• Demonstrated common elements in their lives and the lives of other children, using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC);
• Were aware of the factors that influence the growing of fruit and vegetables, locally and globally;
• Recognised links between global food issues and local food issues, trade, food production and inequality.

What the children said…

“When I grow up I want to go and work in Africa like you did”.

“Ruth Allen came to Horrington primary school to talk to us about Botswana in Africa.  They pound down maize (sweet corn) to make something called mealy meal then it is turned to pap, a food that gives them all the carbohydrates they need.  When they have a picnic they have to have a rug on the ground because there are plants with thorns the one name I can remember is Devil’s thorns!”

We would be delighted to discuss working with other organisations on development awareness projects. For further information, or if you would like to discuss replicating this experience in your area, please contact our Development Awareness Officer, Dr Raúl Pardíñaz-Solís, on + 44 (0) 116 257 6629.