Since 2018, EADI has been part of Bridge 47 – Building Global Citizenship, a European-wide consortium of 15 civil society organizations created with the goal of promoting the inclusion of SDG 4, education for development, and specifically, Target 4.7 global citizenship education at all policy levels in Europe and beyond.
In 2018, EADI started a collaborative partnership with the Fundación Etea of the Universidad Loyola Andalucía (Spain), a member of EADI, with the goal of building-up a knowledge exchange partnership in the Iberian region. Various other actors came on board, Sinergias ED, a collective of academics and practitioners of Portugal working on education for social transformation since 2014, and the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain), through their research group on education and development.
Three regional meetings took place between 2018 and 2020, and members of the partnership have participated and continue doing so in other Bridge 47-related events, as the Global Network meetings (Brussels, Belgrade), Envision 47 (Helsinki), advocacy and policy groups, among others. Lately, members of this partnership have been introduced to the other regional knowledge partnerships (South Eastern Europe and Northern) to support further collaboration in projects and other initiatives on GCE at the European level, e.g. ANGEL conferences and workshops, European Green Deal.
Dr. Antonio Sianes, researcher at Fundación Etea and professor at Universidad Loyola Andalucía, coordinated this process with the support of Dr. María José Vázquez, researcher at Fundación Etea. Both have participated in Bridge 47-related face-to-face and online events during the last three years.
In the following video, Dr. Vázquez introduces experiences of GCE bringing together academia and grassroots organizations in Valencia (Spain):
In the following second video, Dr. La Salete Coelho, of the Sinergias ED collective, gives us her perspective on building up a knowledge exchange partnership in Portugal:
EADI will continue this work in the next with like-minded partners interested in advancing the cause of education through partnerships for development.
More information on Bridge 47 here
Source: European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), November 2020