 Children learn about other cultures through pictures & drawings  Children from an elementary school in Taipei |
Global friends: a cultural exchange project for children
The Children's Literature Research Unit, based in the Department of Information Science at Unisa, has been organising the Global Friends cultural exchange projects with South African children both ocally and overseas for more than a decade.
The exchange project consists of hands-on creative workshops with children in selected South African schools, as well as those in schools in the participating country abroad. The children are informed of the respective countries, the people, culture, and so on by means of PowerPoint presentations, videos, music and exhibitions.
The children are requested to act as ambassadors of their country by making drawings to showcase their lives, schools, towns and the country’s uniqueness, and also to write letters (often with photographs or drawings attached) to introduce themselves to one other. The work done by the South African children is always done prior to the visit abroad and exhibited in the foreign country for the children of that country to respond to.
This project was held in Taipei, Taiwan, in November 2008. At this occasion, the Taipei children from 4 elementary schools created artwork to promote the uniqueness of their country. On the South African side, three disadvantaged schools in the Western Cape participated and the work created by the children of the two countries was recently exhibited by the CLRU at Nederburg Primary School in Paarl. The exhibition was opened by Prof Thomas van der Walt of the CLRU and the Taiwanese representative in Cape Town, Mr Simon Tu.
Nederburg Primary School subsequently decided to enter the project for the Microsoft Innovative Teachers' Forum Competition. |
