Live Chats with Ghanaian Students at 'Africa Day' in the Netherlands

“Hi to you all from Ghana, my biggest dream is to be a computer wizard, an actress or a lawyer.” It is around ten ‘o clock in the morning when the first comments from students from the West African Senior High School in Ghana appear on two large screens at IICD’s Global Connection lounge. This day The Haagse School is all about Africa with workshops, discussions, performances, African food and information stands. In the lounge on the main floor of the Haagse Hogeschool IICD presents its Global Teenager Project by having an online opinion board. Through computers at the stand, visitors from Afrikadag share their opinion about topics such as ‘Obama and Africa’ and ‘My Biggest Dreams.’

Not long after the the start of Afrikadag, the first people start to come into the Global Connection Lounge and start typing in their topics and take their pictures using one of the three webcams. At the stand students from the Corlaere High school in The Netherlands are talking to the students in Ghana online. “I talked about my biggest dream and I said I wanted better education for children who do not have education just yet,” says the 15-years old Marc Gooris. His class participates in the Global Teenager Project. With five other classes from around the world, his class discusses the topic ‘water and the environment.’ Schools in Canada, Bangladesh and The Netherlands all answer each others’ questions and conduct research in their water areas by using webcams and water measuring equipment. From the start of the Global Teenager Project in 1998 until 2008, about 100,000 students have already participated in Learning Circles like the one Marc participates in or in one with a topic such as HIV/Aids, Leadership or simply ‘A Day In My Life.’

In the afternoon at the Global teenager workshop, people actually got a chance to participate in a Learning Circle. IICD’s managing director Caroline Figueres, Global teenager Project Coordinator Bob Hofman and Ghanaian coordinator Emefa Ansah explained how the classes all over the world cooperate. During the workshop, the participants were also introduced to wiki’s, the online tool that is most used for sharing information and posing questions to other classes. Only one participant had worked with wiki’s before, but with the help of Emifa Ansah and the Dutch students from the Corlaere High School, everyone was able to work in the program.

The topic that the particiants in the workshop talked about was democracy. After introducing themselves the participants eagerly started asking questions to other groups by using the wiki. All of the more than twenty participants were really surprised to see how easy it is to form a learning circle and to start learning from each other’s cultures. Another nice surprise for them was to see that several Ghanaian students were also online to ask and answer questions. Apart from the Global Teenager Project, IICD was also present on the information market that was held on the second floor of the Haagse Hogeschool.

There were plenty of other things to do at Afrikadag. Lively discussions took place about topics such as ‘Piracy in Somalia’ and ‘Obama and Africa’, people took African dance lessons and there were plenty of African dishes, music and clothes for sale. Afrikadag 2009 ended with a spectacular performance by the Grammy Award Winning Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo.

For more information about the Global Teenager Workshop, visit the report on the Afrikdag website.