Help your students become empathy builders, stereotype crushers, and change agents!

MISIÓN POSIBLE: Impact of Relationship Building, Global Competency & Social Change-Guatemala City, Guatemala/Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Driving Question: What impact can relationship building, connection and collaboration with communities locally, regionally and globally, while using the target language, have on us to shift our perspectives and help empower positive social change?

Project Summary/Big Idea

Using the themes brought up by The Danger of the Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie, students will have the opportunity to analyze what global connections mean for them and see how relationship building cross-culturally may shift their perspectives and help empower them to create positive change in their own communities. Students will be introduced to three global partners and communicate virtually on a weekly to bi-monthly basis, using the target language, via zoom, flipgrid, and padlet. The unit, which will include examining local and global issues, including understanding and comparing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, will span over the course of four months. The four months will provide students time and consistent contact to get to know their global partners and practice in real-time global competency skills.

One of many global competence skills the students will develop is their ability to investigate the world beyond their immediate environment and use knowledge of language and culture to identify issues and frame researchable questions of local, regional and global significance. They will be challenging the dangerous single story and will use their intrapersonal language skills to connect and reflect globally, locally and personally. They will be also helping to put our school’s mission statement into effect and “know your powers and be answerable for their use.”

Our school is in Providence, Rhode Island and the three partner organizations are in Guatemala City: 1. SEK Guatemala, a private high school, 2. Creamos, a non-profit NGO helping to empower women who live and often work at the Guatemala City Dump, and 3. Project Olas, a program founded by a student at Georgetown University, working within Creamos employing mothers in the area to become language teachers/mentors for students virtually in the US and beyond. Over the four months, my students will connect with students, in their age group (14-16 years old) at the SEK school and work with the same language mentor/mom from Project Olas.

All parties will have time to identify which SDGs are the most important to them personally, to their community, and to the world. And then my students, with the collaboration of their global partners, will investigate how these SDGs are being addressed in their local communities and in their partner communities, in Guatemala City. Such investigations will include interviews with local community members, including finding a Spanish-speaking community member who dedicates their time to help reach the particular SDG of focus.

For some virtual sessions with their Project Olas “mom”, and the SEK students, my students will need to design the format and goals/essential question of the sessions. There will be much virtual class time spent to share stories and perspectives. Getting to know our partners include getting to know about the geography, food, daily routines, language, and customs of Guatemala and Central America, and for our partners learning about Rhode, Island and New England. For the global partners and US students there will also be time to share knowledge of personal skills/interests and learn skills/interests from their partner (ie. cooking, art, crafts, songs, etc.)

My students will also have an interview with local community members who live in Providence and have immigrated to the US from Guatemala, such as the family from the local Guatemalan restaurant called Mi Guatemala, parents and grandparents of our students, and the city’s Mayor, Jorge Elorza, who is of Guatemalan descent. Their stories and perspectives can help enrich their understanding of the people and place of their global partners.

Students will culminate the unit by choosing a global partner from one of our 3 organizations, with which to collaborate and create personalized final presentations on the SDGs most important to them, which global competencies they have developed over the semester, the impact of Global Education at our school and beyond, and how this work has impacted their own actions locally, regionally and/or globally. Students will brainstorm who will be the best audience members to whom to present their findings, such as inviting community members including parents, local “expert” guest speakers, board of trustees, folks from a local Latinx advocacy group, and administration at our school. Then students, along with their global partners (either with the Guatemalan school or with Creamos), will present either via zoom or in a video format. They will present their reflections about their global collaboration experience, the SDG work, and how their ‘MISION POSIBLE' affected their perspective and if it shifted how they view the world and their impact on social positive change. Students will be answering the essential question and what that means for the future of global education at our school, our community, and our world. They can give recommendations for our school and community members to consider.