Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Both Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School and Ceara School in Northern Ireland recently welcomed two representatives from their partner schools Lostange Senior Secondary and Moeng College from Botswana. Supported by the Youth Sport Trust and British Council, the aim of the week was to build a strong partnership together which was sustainable and would achieve mutually beneficial success for all schools and local communities involved.
The four schools involved in the Dreams + Teams programme had met for the first time at the African Partnership workshop in Johannesburg in October 2007 which gave the schools the opportunity to start to work together. Immediately following the two day workshop, representatives from Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School and Ceara School returned to Botswana to meet their partner school and their local community and to start to plan how they would work together.
The return visit to Northern Ireland included a full programme of activity for the Botswana visitors including a visit to Stormont to meet the Minister of Education for Northern Ireland. The Minister hosted each of the schools as well as representatives from the Youth Sport Trust and the British Council in her office for a general discussion around the importance of international partnerships and listened to the feedback of the schools around their commitments to Dreams + Teams.
Caitriona Ruane, Minister of Education for Northern Ireland, said:
“This is an exciting way of using sport to engage young people in the world around them. We are all global citizens and this project is an excellent way of both teachers and students experiencing and contributing to cultural and educational understanding.”
Paul Whitten, Youth Sport Trust Development Manager in Northern Ireland, said:
“Aquinas and Ceara are great advocates of the Dreams + Teams principle. The pre-planning work completed between them and in their schools has meant the programme has got off to a positive start with real potential to embed within the whole school. It is great to see young people involved at the start of this project to help drive the development and steer the future.”
Click here for more information on Dreams + Teams