Background

During an international exchange seminar in Denmark in June 1998 financed by EU, the participants from Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Denmark set up an education network. The network is meant to promote exchange of ideas and experience concerning education and democracy, partly in a south - south network between the participating Latin American countries, and partly in a south - north network between South America and the Nordic countries.

As an element in the development and strengthening of this network two employees from SPF in the Spring 1999 carried through a number of courses and workshops in Bolivia , Peru, and Chile under the headline: How is a democratic school structure created?

The sub-items were, among other things, project work / participant managing, creative learning processes, co-operation, evaluation, and conflict managing.

The project was financed by the Democracy Fund, Youth Town, and the Latin American collaborators, and it was arranged in co-operation with the Danish NGO, Axis. The interest in the Danish experience as regards democratic learning and involvement of the surrounding society was so great that the collaborators in South America very much wanted to study the processes and methods more deeply and also discuss and plan, how these may be implemented into a South American context.

Purpose

During the Autumn of 99 an application to the Democracy Fund was made. This happened in co-operation with Axis and our South American collaborators. "Democracy and Human Rights Developing" we called this project, which contained 14 South Americans` two weeks study visit to Denmark in March 2000.

The Democracy Fund granted a financial support of about 230.000 Dkr. The purpose of the project was that the participants got knowledge and understanding of

• Danish democratic tradition
• Educational innovation with special focus on democratic learning processes and human rights
• How the surrounding society (firms, organizations, institutions from as well the private as the public sector) can take a co-responsibility for and get involved in education of young people
• What can be done to prevent marginalized young people from dropping out of the school system

Programme in Denmark

The two weeks visit in Denmark was divided into three stages.

The first stage lasted for four days and consisted of common introduction about Danish democracy and the education system. After that presentation and trying out materials, methods, and participant orientated course activities within, among other things, human rights and conflict managing at three levels - internationally, group- plus personally.

The second stage lasted for three working days. Here the participants in three cross- national groups of their own choice studied the above outlined goals more in depth. The work was organized as a project work.

By the way of introduction our South American guests formulated a number of questions, which they wanted an answer to during their work in the field with respectively

1. Youth Town
2. The Folkeskole - including The School at the Innovative Centre
3. Production Schools

During the three days the South Americans gathered information, materials, taped interviews, slides, and digital pictures.

The third stage also lasted for three days. Here the participants worked up the gathered information, materials, and their experience from the first stage as well. On the second last day the South Americans presented the result of their research and their ideas of new projects to each other.

New Projects?

The ideas of co-operation in the north - south network in headline form covered:

• Better education of teachers
• Democracy: strengthen the teachers and leaders in proportion to a democratic development
• Increased participation of parents in the school
• Involvement of the local business community
• Human Rights course about Aché is translated to Latin American conditions
• Courses in Conflict Managing (Youth Town)
• Peace- and Conflict Game about international conflict managing (Youth Town)
• Courses in Ethic Account (Lindevang school)

• Exchange programmes for teacher training students
• Wish to establish Youth Towns in Santiago, Lima, Cusco, La Paz, Cochabamba, and Recife
• Combinations of the youth-town idea and production schools in La Paz and Chile
• Wish to establish an experimental school in Lima

And the ideas of co-operation in the south - south network:

• Exchange programmes for young people in South America
• Make a publication about educational development
• Make radio programmes about educational innovations
• Ecology in teaching - target group 5000 pupils and teachers in Cusco
• Education and sexuality - for leaders and promoters
• Distance teaching - sex education (increase in population 3% in Peru)
• Women working - supported by local companies (The Production school Roskilde)
• Support to the participation of parents in the local society
• Support to youth work - international youth meeting
• Exchange materials and methods

The last day the South Americans presented their impressions from visits at production schools, "Folkeskoler", different courses in Youth Town, and the meetings with instructors, collaborators, and educational advisers behind the range of courses in Youth Town. After 14 days with co-operation, being together, and salsa, the South Americans and the Danes parted, but the co-operation continues in south - and between north and south.