Global Citizenship

Taking global responsibility for the world and for its people is a key part of peace education. Our actions are guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, The Agenda 2030, and the Maastricht Declaration of 2002, which defines global education as “action that opens people’s eyes and minds to the realities of the world and awakens them to work for human rights and a fairer and more equal world.”   

In our work, this means supporting the education of active and conscious people who can perceive themselves as part of a global entity and bear their share of global responsibility.    

Global education is also about cultivating a sense of world citizenship, with the task of developing citizens’ knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes in order to build a fairer, more equal, safer world committed to peace and sustainable development. Thus, issues related to global education vary from the education of human rights, equality, and sustainable development to the interconnectedness between global and local phenomena. Within the Sustainable Development Goals, we focus in particular on social sustainability, such as equality and human rights, and the themes of democracy and inclusion, and participation. 

Critical global education challenges those working in the field of education and training to self-reflection: what is our own position in the world, what kind of worldview do we convey in our materials, and by what methods do we approach global and local realities; what kind of background assumptions guide our global education work? At the heart of critical global education are conscious and informed choices that return to the question of power, that is, the question of the extent to which we contest or reinforce existing power relations and power structures.