Local 4 Global

APPROACH

The Brighton and Hove Primary School Storytelling Festival
Funded by Local4Global, the Brighton Peace and Environment Centre (BPEC) has been organising a culturally diverse storytelling festival in conjunction with the Local Authorities and 6 primary schools in Brighton and Hove.The Festival has been a brilliant opportunity to engage with local primary schools, build new strategic partnerships, raise awareness and understanding of the Global Dimension and promote BPEC's services.

Promotion of the Global Dimension
As the initial steering group meeting to plan the details of the festival was held at BPEC, the representatives of the schools and of the Local Authorities (LA) were able to get to know the resource centre and BPEC's services.After an introduction to Education for Global Citizenship the teachers discussed lively the global dimension of the event and how they could follow it up in the classroom. The pupils involved in the festival learned about oral traditions and experienced cultural diverse stories. They were fully involved in the stories, listened carefully and were keen to relate the stories back to their own life. Please see the newsletter article for more details of the performances.

Promotion of BPEC's Services
During the festival BPEC displayed a selection of resources in the staff room of each school and aroused a lot of interest in the teachers. Most of the teachers had not been aware of BPEC and its services.In Aldrington Primary School one of the teachers said that BPEC's books and artefacts filled a huge gap and complemented any other existing resources for schools in Brighton and Hove in a unique way. She gave us contact details of other strategic links within the LA in order to make more schools aware of the service. A teacher at Carlton Hill Primary School asked BPEC to be involved in the planning of their upcoming international week and expressed interest to attend a training organised by BPEC about this topic.Another teacher from St Mary's has already ordered a box of resources. All schools involved said they would join BPEC and the local4global website.

OUTCOMES

Strategic partnerships
The festival has been invaluable for the development of close ties with Hilary Ferries, Local Primary Strategy Advisor and Suzanne Morgan, the Local Literacy Advisor.Before the festival Ms Ferries met with us to discuss the idea and helped us to get schools involved, with which BPEC had not worked before. After the steering group meeting Ms Morgan helped to organise the partnership work between the different schools. Since the steering group meeting Ms Ferris has started advertising BPEC through the LA - especially the training and services offered. She offered to pay the supply cover for all teachers for the debrief meeting on 24th May and said in an email to BPEC: "I have heard nothing than praise for the storytelling festival." Furthermore she proposed to use photos, impressions and learning from the festival and distribute them to other educationalists via conferences and networks organised by the LA.The LA fully supports BPEC's plan to make the Storytelling Festival an annual event.

Lessons learnt
This project has been achieved by collaboration with other organisations and has confirmed that good communication is crucial when working with and through different partners.

Mareike Engels, BPEC May 2007

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