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Description
This initiative involves the training of 200 Primary & Secondary school educators from all over Greece on issues regarding the advocacy of the rights of children. For this purpose, we have selected two short films about the violation of articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Specifically: “My Letter to the Oilmen”, 2019, Nigeria (art. 24, the right to clean drinking water, dangers from pollution), and “Jamila”, 2019, Sweden (art. 22, protection of the legal standing of child refugees). We plan to hold 4 webinars with 50 places each, where teachers will watch the selected film. The screening will be followed by a participatory presentation of methodology through classroom simulation, group-activities, role-playing games etc. The presentation will train educators in a methodology of raising awareness and educating their students on issues of the rights of children. This methodology is based on tools and techniques of media analysis on narrative themes, as a direct means for students to identify with the experiences of the protagonists. The presentation will include participation from artistic contributors to the films who will speak about their approach to issues around specific articles from the Convention within their work. Educators then hold screenings of the selected film in the classroom, followed by group discussions promoting awareness, respect and understanding of the issues around rights of children. In this way, they transfer the knowledge and experience that they gained through our webinar. The Festival curates and provides an accompanying educational kit for further work and study in the classroom. The presentation and educational kit are designed by educators, acting pedagogy specialists and child psychologists. After the completion of the webinars, the Festival will make the films and educational kits available on the project’s webpage for 20 days.
Summary of project results
The Athens International Children’s Film Festival implemented the project with the goal to train a total of 121 primary and secondary educators from around the country on the issue of Human rights and the Rights of the Child. During 4 webinar sessions, teachers were given the opportunity to watch two films which tackle various breaches of Articles of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child: Primary school educators watched the film My Letter to the Oil Men (Netherlands, 2018, Zander de Boer) and secondary school educators watched Jamila (Sweden, 2019, Sophie Vukovic). Following the screening, the teachers participated in an interactive presentation of the teaching methodology including classroom simulation, group activities, role-playing scenarios and more. After the completion of these seminars, the participants were given a detailed educational kit while the films were made available online to the participants for 2 weeks, so that the methodology could be applied in their classrooms. As of December 2021, the programme has been utilized for the benefit of 4,844 students in classrooms across Greece.
From our ongoing engagement with the educational community, we have realised a clear need for the application of alternative and creative educational methodologies which speak the language of children to bring sensitive social issues such as Human Rights and the Rights of the Child into the classroom. With the constant deluge of online audiovisual media which, particularly for young people, have become the overwhelmingly dominant form of communication, entertainment and information, democratic society and human rights are, now more than ever, intertwined with the ability of the viewer to understand and analyse the subjective point of view of the author of an audiovisual work, from narrative fiction to news pieces. Audiovisual Media Literacy (film education) through critical analysis and perception offers the necessary tools for young people to learn to separate the virtual world of media from reality, to become more aware of social issues and to engage with them through analytical critique, to become capable of freely and comprehensively expressing their views and to become the active citizens of the future. T