CONCORD’s DARE forum

In September 2012, Elaine Mahon – NYCI Development Education officer – completed her mandate as Dóchas representative on the CONCORD Development Education (DARE) forum. Bobby McCormack of Development Perpsectives takes over from Elaine and we wish him all the best!

What is the CONCORD DARE Forum?

What is NYCI’s role in the DARE Forum?

Read about DARE activities and meetings

What is the role of the Youth and Children working group?

Read the Youth and Children Position Paper

Read the Thematic Dossier on the role of Youth and Children in Development Education

Other activities at European level

What is the CONCORD DARE Forum?

CONCORD is the confederation of European non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for relief and development. They have a permanent working group on development education called the DARE Forum (Development Awareness-Raising and Education).  DEEEP is a project funded by the European Commission to coordinate and manage the activities of the DARE forum.  The DEEEP project has been funded 4 times by the EC and is now planning for the future of the project (beginning January 2012).

What is NYCI’s role in the DARE Forum?

From May 2010 until September 2012, NYCI Development Education Project Officer Elaine Mahon acted as the Irish representative at the DARE forum (Development Awareness-Raising and Education) Forum of CONCORD.

Elaine represented Dóchas and its members involved in development education at the DARE Forum. Dóchas is the Irish umbrella body for NGOs and development organisations and the national platform in Ireland of CONCORD. NYCI is a member of Dóchas and a member of the Development Education group (DEG) of Dóchas.  As the Dóchas representative at CONCORDs’ DARE Forum, Elaine’s role was to represent what is happening in development education in Dóchas and Ireland to the other members of the DARE Forum, and in turn feedback to colleagues in Ireland about initiatives in the field of development education at European level. Meetings of the forum take place twice per year.

Read about DARE activities and meetings

2012 activities:

• The DARE forum in September 2012 in Lisbon. Elaine did not attend, but Dóchas and IDEA were represented by Bobby McCormack, Development Perspectives
• The DARE forum in May 2012 took place 22-23 May in Strasbourg. For more information, contact Elaine. During the forum, Elaine was involved in campaigning for MEP signatures to a written declaration on Development Education, as well as the launch of an Advocacy Toolkit for development education and the closing and evaluation of the 3rd phase of the DEEEP project ending in September 2012. As chairperson of the DARE ‘Youth and Children’ working group, Elaine hosted a meeting of that group. To find out more about what happened at the meeting, please click here.

2011 activities:

Youth and Children working group

• The DARE forum in Autumn 2011 took place 13-14 October 2011. For more information, contact Elaine. At the meeting, Elaine was involved in planning for the future of the DARE forum (via a funding application to the European Commission for DEEEP 4), including the DE Summer School in Czech Republic in 2012. As chairperson of the DARE ‘Youth and Children’ working group, Elaine hosted a meeting of that group. There was also a meeting with the CONCORD taskforce on multi-annual financial framework (MFF) of the EC on the future of European funding to development. To find out more about what happened at the meeting, please click here.
• At the October meeting, there was a seminar on: ‘Building Global Civil Society through Active Citizenship’ with Dr. Matt Bailie-Smith (University of Northumbria), Joanna Maycock (Vice-President of CONCORD and Head of ActionAid Europe), and a member of the INDIGNADOS movement in Spain. Dr. Bailie-Smith’s presentation is available here.
• In June 2011, the youth and children group published a position paper with the support of DEEEP on ‘Involving Youth and Children in Development Education and Awareness-raising’. You can download the paper here, or consult the DEEEP page.
• In October 2011, the youth and children group published a dossier of articles on good practice in involving youth and children in development. With the support of DEEEP the dossier is now available to download here.

• The Spring 2011 DARE forum took place in Brussels 17-18 May. At the meeting, Elaine was involved in planning for the future of the DARE forum (2012 – ), including the DE Summer School in Czech Republic in 2012. A position paper on development and engaging with the public was endorsed and as chairperson of the DARE ‘Youth and Children’ working group, Elaine hosted a meeting of that group. To find out more about what happened at the meeting, please click here. A The DARE fourm have also launched a paper on why public engagement is crucial. You can read it here ‘Development Needs Citizens’. In September 2011, DEEEP launched the latest DEEEP thematic dossier ‘DEAR matters: Strategic approaches to development education in Europe’. It documents various approaches to development education strategies, highlighting successes but also challenges.

2010 meetings

• Elaine first attended the DARE forum in Madrid, May 2010. At the meeting, Elaine was appointed chairperson of the new ‘Youth and Children’ working group of DARE. To find out more about what happened at the Madrid meeting, please click here.
• The second meeting of 2010 took place on 13-14 October in Brussels, where the ‘Youth and Children’ group organised a joint session on development education with the European Youth Forum. The afternoon session was organised as a ‘World Café’ event disucssing themes related to young people and development-education communication, and young people as actors and leaders in development education. More information is available here. The report from the European Youth Forum is available here.The DEEEP report of the forum meeting is also available.

What is the role of the Youth and Children working group?

The vision of the Youth and Children working group is: “Youth and children have an increasingly important potential and role to play in development education and awareness-raising, not only as target groups of what is ‘taught’, but as promoters and leaders of development education and awareness-raising in their own right through peer education and leadership.” The working group has approximately 8 active members, is chaired by NYCI and the vice-chair is Plan Finland. The working group has two main aims:

1. Ensuring that the perspectives of youth and children, and organisations which work with
them are inform policies and practices within development NGOs and development education
organisations
2.  Promoting the relevance of development education to child and youth organisations and the
importance of bringing a global perspective into their work

Read the Youth and Children Position Paper here

Read the Thematic Dossier on the role of Youth and Children in Development Education here

Other recent activities

–          On March 1 2012, the European Parliament opened signatures for a written declaration on “Development Education and Active Global Citizenship”. To be adopted, at least half of the MEPs need to sign and this majority was reached on 4 July.  The declaration asks for reinforcing strategies in development education, awareness raising and active global citizenship at European and national level. Although a declaration is non-binding, it is an important first ‘official’ step in terms of recognising the role of development education at EU level. Visit the website: http://citizens.concordeurope.org/ for more details on the Declaration, or to download a postcard on development education and the Declaration in all official languages of the EU, including Irish! In May 2012 the CONCORD DARE Forum held its bi-annual meeting in Strasbourg and was present at the European Parliament. Click here for more details on the declaration on development education.

–           The European Commission is planning its first ever strategy for Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR). On 7 May 2012 in Brussels there will be a “DEAR stakeholder meeting” to initiate planning of the strategy. This is one of the EC’s responses to the report carried out in 2010 on its funding to Development Education (DEAR Study). More information will be available soon. Some of the key messages of the DARE forum are available in the article ‘The time is ripe for a European development education strategy’ available in the ‘DEAR Matters’ collection of articles.

–          Speaking at the European Youth Forum on young people and development education in campaigning for the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Download Elaine’s speech here.

–          Feeding into the DEAR (development education and awareness-raising) Study of the European Commission online and at a conference in Brussels 11-12 October, 2010. The full report and study was launched at the European Development Days 2010 and is now available from the webgate.ec.europa.eu website with recommendations from the external consultants for the EC on future funding to DEAR. The next European Commission’s call on Development Education (DEAR) activities for NGOs (and other non-State Actors) to apply to will be sometime around June 2011. There will also be another Call in 2012. More information on the Call will be available soon.

– The Multi-stakeholder Group for Development Education (including DARE forum and the North-South centre) organised a joint event at European Development Days entitled ‘Do Europeans care about the rest of the World?’. Here you will find a press review refering to the event. Several of the reviews were written by “Young reporters against poverty”, a competition launched by the European Journalism Centre, with the financial support of the European Commission.

European events in Ireland

At a conference organised by the Centre for Global Education in Belfast on 26 January the topic ‘Global/Development Education across Europe: Actors, approaches, debates and recent trends’ was discussed. Johannes Krause (imPuls organisation, Germany) facilitated the day’s workshop and you can download his notes ‘DEAR (Dev Ed and Awareness Raising) in Europe – in 5 pages‘ here. Johannes Krause was one of the authors of the DEAR Study commissioned by the EC, and also wrote ‘DE Watch‘, the European Development Education Monitoring Report.

Please contact Elaine at elainem@nyci.ie if you would like to contribute or have questions.