Global Kids Connect leverages youth media to influence cultural change and to promote global citizenship. This process is infused with depth through education and classroom activities with specific lesson plans and a youth driven action component as an empowerment tool. The Global Kids Connect program gives children the opportunity to develop:
- Knowledge of factors underpinning social justice, diversity, globalization and interdependence, sustainable development, peace and conflict.
- Skills for critical thinking, analysis, resource mobilization and global advocacy and action for promoting justice, eradicating poverty, and conflict resolution.
- Values that enhance a sense of global identity, empathy, respect for diversity, concern about the environment and the belief that people can make a difference.
The Global Kids Connect program infuses global citizenship themes in mainstream youth media with educational modules on these same themes in the classroom. Global Kids Connect also empowers youth to take positive action on the global stage, whether through volunteerism, philanthropy or advocacy. Participants in the Global Kids Connect program interact with their worldwide counterparts through an Internet-based "E-bridge," and video or audio recordings, advocating and taking responsibility to enact social change within their own communities. Global Kids Connect members feel connected with each other and empowered to participate in the global market place of ideas and interactions through tangible experiences.
With seed funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Global Catalyst Foundation, the Global Kids Connect partnership was born with Nickelodeon, National Geographic Society (NGS), University of California, Los Angeles International Institute (UCLA-II), and Relief International - Schools Online (RI-SOL) as core partners.
