Think Global successes

Education has come a long way since Think Global was founded (as DEA) over 15 years ago.  Find out about the highlights of our recent work, and read on for some of our achievements in recent years:

Across global learning

• Our major contributions to the Government's International Strategy on education and Sustainable Development Action Plan resulted in important recognition for global learning issues in both documents.
• We called for, and achieved, the establishment of a cross-Government departmental Global Dimension Working Group led by Think Global and with officials from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Department for International Development, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the British Council.
• We chaired the schools group of the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005, engaging hundreds of schools across the country in the campaign and heightening the presence of the campaign's educational element.
• In 2005 the Commission for Africa Secretariat commissioned us to set up the Learning Africa website with resources and information targeted specifically at schools.
• We contributed to the establishment of the TUC's revitalised Global Learning Union Group, which brings together a range of trade unions who provide global learning for their members.
• Working with partners we set up DEEEP, the international body that aims to strengthen global learning across Europe.
• Our lobbying ensured that global learning (and development education) formed a key part of the Department for International Development's groundbreaking Building Support for Development Strategy, launched in 1999.
• Since 2000, DFID mini grants administered by Think Global have provided over £2.5m in funding for over 120 projects across the country.

Schools

• Our work helped to deliver the global and sustainable dimension that runs across every subject in the new secondary curriculum for England, launched in Autumn 2008.
• We influenced the programmes of study (statutory curriculum) to include global learning - elements of global learning are now statutory within every subject.
• We secured a place on the group involved in developing the new Humanities Diploma, enabling us to influence its content and put the case for global learning to be at its centre.
• We successfully lobbied for, and now run, the Global Dimension Website and have developed it into the UK's premier global resource site for teachers.
• In partnership with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, we produced joint guidance on the global dimension in schools.

Youth work

• Our Global Youth Action project has directly engaged over 2000 young people, and indirectly engaged over 6000 young people, in global youth work.
• In 2008, we successfully worked to ensure that the global dimension is a central part of new National Occupational Standards for Youth Work, the national guidance for youth workers.
• We co-ordinate the Joint Agencies Group, England's major network for over 40 NGOs involved in global youth work.
• We secured a place on the Sustainable Development and Youth Work Forum, which brought together key agencies and NGOs including the National Youth Agency, DCFS, DFID, the Sustainable Development Commission.