Edmund Rice International Schools’ Partnership launch

Edmund Rice International Schools’ Partnership program

Official Launch – 8^th May, 2024

On Wednesday 8^th May, Edmund Rice International held an official online launch of its new schools’ partnership program. Having spent some time in development, we are glad to see this scheme come into practice. The schools’ partnership program is a way that ERI can track the schools it is directly engaging with across the Edmund Rice Network, know who the link staff and current Youth Ambassadors are. Over the past few months, regional advocacy coordinators and ERI animators have been encouraging the schools in their networks to have their principals sign the partnership agreements and share them with ERI staff in Geneva. ‘Official partner schools’ are steadily increasing.

Br Tino D’abreu, Grace David, the advocacy coordinator for Edmund Rice schools in India and Ann Nichols, the Network Facilitator from Edmund Rice England designed the launch meeting which included hearing from advocacy lead staff and student Youth Ambassadors. Br Brian Bond, Executive Director of Edmund Rice International joined the meeting from his native Australia where he gave an overview of the partnership scheme and how the ERI team hope it will foster deeper connections and collaboration between the young people in our schools around being a common voice for justice.

More than 100 participants, who included school principals, advocacy coordinators, mission animators and student leaders in social justice joined from across India, South Africa, Ireland and the UK to show their commitment to the partnership scheme and to share how being connected with ERI in schools enhances their global perspective on injustice.

Designed to strengthen the Youth Ambassador program, this new partnership will offer more regular global meets for students, increased interactions with ERI and the global student community and more mutual support.

Student ambassador Nityam Soorma from St Columba’s school in Delhi explained how he had enjoyed participating in the EREBB Global Classroom Partners program, meeting other students ‘beyond borders’ and learning about their perspective on global issues. He is excited to be the Youth Ambassador in his school and looking forward to engaging with other schools on campaigns.

Lachlan Gregory, a student from St Edward’s College in England had already had the chance to visit Geneva this year which gave him a huge insight into the achievements and shortcomings of the UN, into specific human rights injustices discussed at the UPR sessions he witnessed and into the work of ERI. Lachlan is one of two newly appointed Youth Ambassadors at his school, and he is eager to develop the human rights approach to justice in his school as well as leading local and global campaigns.

Ashlee Mally is a teacher and peace and justice group coordinator in her school, Ardscoil na Mara, near Waterford in Ireland. Ashlee kindly joined the meeting to give an overview of how advocacy works in their school, the role of their Youth Ambassadors and the different initiatives the peace and justice group have been involved with.  Ardscoil na Mara is a lead school in the European province of Edmund Rice schools in terms of its advocacy work and how it shares and connects with other organisations.

Another advocacy coordinator with much experience and expertise is Kaylee Lewis from CBC St John’s in Cape Town, South Africa.  Kaylee runs her justice group who have engaged widely across the global network on campaigns, shared their great enthusiasm and work involving both human and earth rights and have engaged directly with UN submissions. I am sure many on the call learned a lot from Kaylee’s contribution.

Ann Nichols from the Edmund Rice Network in England shared some further thoughts on being an ERI partner school and how to raise the profile of ERI amongst the whole school community.

We thank Tom Murray from England and Cormac McArt from the North of Ireland who have paved the way to setting up this scheme with their work animating advocacy in schools and liaising closely with ERI.

What next?

School Youth Ambassadors are invited to their first ‘Global Meet’ on 30^th September entitled: ‘Our work as ERI Youth Ambassadors, paving a way for justice.’ At this meeting we will hear from students about their work to date, their planned campaigns and about initiatives they can share with the wider group. We hope to see as many of our Youth Ambassadors there as possible! Put the date in your diary.

ERI intend to run two School Partnership Global Meets per year and encourage more frequent regional gatherings (in person or digital) between partner schools to take place.

Having a formalised partnership between Edmund Rice International and our schools will help to open students’ eyes to global injustice, facilitate their connections with other Edmund Rice activists and advocates and will increase opportunities for learning and training around human rights issues which encourages the people in our network to see and tackle the underlying causes of injustice in our society. It will also raise the profile of human rights and SDGs education in our educational institutions.

Make sure your school has signed and returned its agreement to Br Bond.

LINK to recording of the launch