Earlier this week we added a new link under our youth work resources section to some resources from Bridges all about global issues.

Today we bring you a special guest blog from Nina Davies. Nina Davies is Bridges Community Officer working with youth and community groups. You can get in touch on 01952 255526, e-mail nina@bridgesglobal.org.uk or visit www.bridgesglobal.org.uk.

Here’s the blog

Martin Luther King Jr once said “before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.”

The truth in this seems to grow every day as we wake-up in sheets made from cotton grown in India, breakfast on cereal made from maize grown in the USA and rely on mobile phones made in China from minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The charity I work for, Bridges, aims to support young people, and the adults that work with them, to think about and discuss these complex issues and explore the things they can do to make the world a little bit fairer for everyone.

We’ve recently created several new resources that we hope will inspire and support you in exploring global issues with the young people you work with.

Our Get Started Guides are a series of short activity guides to help you and your group get started (clue’s in the name!) with global learning. Topics include:

• Make a Global Connection – spot the connections in our everyday lives
• Fairtrade Cocoa & Chocolate – almost everyone’s favourite topic
• Fairtrade Cotton & Clothes – who makes the clothes we love to shop for
• Human Rights – understanding the global rights that protect us all
• Waste & Recycling – get creative with “rubbish” and throw a bit less away
• Taking Action for a Fairer World – linking learning to action, there is lots you can do

Heroines and Heroes – explores gender equality with links to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It was written in partnership with Girlguiding Shropshire and would be easily adapted for use by any youth group.

If you need a hand, here are a few top tips on learning and action on global issues:

• Don’t try to find the “right” answer – learning about global issues is complicated and there are lots of different points of view. If your group can listen to each other and explore different perspectives then you have made an excellent start!
• Find similarities as well as differences – it’s easy to focus on the differences when we are learning about the lives of people in other countries but, there are lots of similarities too.
• Link learning to action – sometimes we can all feel overwhelmed and dis-hearted by the many inequalities in our world. Enable your group to fundraise, campaign or spread the message in their local community and help them feel empowered to make a difference to an issue they care about.

Please visit the Bridges website for free resource downloads at:

www.bridgesglobal.org.uk/resources_to_download_community.html

Finally, a quick question – what is the number one global issue young people (and adults too!) should be learning about today?

 Please leave a comment on this blog to share your thoughts or, help me in my current efforts to learn how to use Twitter, and Tweet to @NinaJDavies – Thanks!

About Bridges 

Bridges promotes knowledge and learning for a fairer world. Our vision is a world where all people are respected, learn together and are able to take action.

We deliver activities across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin and aim to share what we do, and learn from others, as widely as possible.

Special thanks from youth work resource to Nina for writing this blog.