Innovation from Chile to YFU global: YFU School Meetings Pilot Project
July 22, 2021 17:54

SALUDOS DESDE CHILE!!!

Where the world ends!... and your lifetime experience begins!

As part of the YFU’s 70th anniversary celebrations, we as YFU Chile set ourselves a beautiful challenge; to bring interculturality closer to our school community in these times where in many countries face-to-face presence has been compromised. Our organisation’s intent is for young people to become global citizens, not only by undergoing the exchange adventure, but also by bringing the intercultural experience to their homes and school communities. Especially those who do not have the opportunity to travel to another country.

To achieve this goal, school communities are our greatest allies. Particularly those that open their doors to international students and choose Chile for their exchange year. Moreover, as Luis Ramos, a teacher at Liceo Bicentenario San Nicolás tells us, this experience helps challenge the students’ paradigms and brings English to the school and its community.

Luis Ramos's testimony

YFU Chile aimed to go further by developing innovations that deepen intercultural communication and inclusive education in our partner school communities.

One of these initiatives is called "YFU School Meetings". Its aim is to connect students and teachers from all over the world and help them reflect and learn to value cultural diversity through a set of playful activities. With the support of YFU Germany, we were able to carry out our first pilot in June 2021, and one of the schools that participated was the Fichtenberg Oberschule in Berlin, Germany. According to their teacher Christina Siegling, the activity was a great success, "the students exchanged their contacts at the end of the activity, with the intention of keeping in touch, and the teachers also agreed to exchange pedagogical activities". We are currently planning a second pilot in October, if you are interested, do not hesitate to contact us.

We believe that this initiative has great potential to unite and connect our different offices globally and create activities for our school communities together. We hope that this excellent experience with the "YFU school meetings" pilot was just the beginning of a larger project at international level and will include more national offices in the coming months. 

Author: Daniela Montenegro Herrera | Coordinadora Marketing y Comunicaciones

Youth For Understanding Chile