Anahita Ahovey, Year 8

"A global citizen is a person who cares about the world and cares about the world's condition. A global citizen is someone who wants to understand people all around the world and the world itself. A global citizen would suffer for a better condition in the world and would find ways to heal the wounds of the world. A global citizen should know how to speak a different language, know about different cultures, customs and religions to be able to understand how to help the people you want to help."

Miriam Augustt and Luana Godau, Year 8

Project Exploration

Our class, the Year 8 of EIS, joined a zoom meeting called “Project Exploration”.

Many classes from all over the world joined too so that we, the young generation, could discuss the meaning of global citizenship.

The objectives for the lesson were to:

• Develop an understanding of global citizenship.
• Analyse current global issues impacting our planet
• Explore and research ways to make our communities more sustainable.

What does Global Citizenship mean?

The concept of global citizenship is we are all caretakers. In addition, a global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world. A person who works with others to make our planet more peaceful, fair and sustainable. A person that takes an active role in their community.

Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development goals is development that meets the needs of people today while protecting the planet and the people of the future. There are many goals that are fascinating, however, the one that I was the most interested in is quality education.

More importantly, for the lesson, we focused on problems in a growing crisis such as clean water and sanitation. We also focused on sustainable cities and communities.

Davida Alston who works at National Geographic Learning was the teacher telling us about the meaning of being a global citizen. I learnt so many interesting things. Of all the information I heard there was one quote that I had fixed into my mind which was, “The world is our family and our family is our responsibility”. I also learned that a global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world, who also works with others to make our planet more peaceful and sustainable. All in all a global citizen is someone who is globally minded.

After covering the topic of global citizenship, Davida Alston introduced us to Alberto Borges. He works for National Geographic and is also the founder of the Explorers Club in Kenya. He explained how we are all interconnected and how as a 14-year-old he already decided to do something for our world to help our world. He helped villagers grow trees and his team also tried figuring a way out on how to save or gather water during the drought in Kenya. I was fascinated by one thing they used whilst on their mission in Kenya and it was a filter straw. They had given it to some people so that they can drink directly from the river and it will get filtered inside the straw so that the water is drinkable. He also explained the importance of keeping our waters clean and not to pollute. I was shocked to hear and see that some water bodies that used to be so clean having been so polluted that the water has turned black.

After listening to all that I realised that we should try and maintain our planet for each other’s health.