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Project Duration: Annual Academic Year
Start/End Date: Ongoing
Face to Faith is a global education project, open to all students aged 11-16. Through dialogue and joint action, students share ideas about culture, faith and identity, developing a deeper understanding of themselves and others. Using video-conferencing and an online community, students work together to investigate specific global issues; discuss a range of opinions values and beliefs; and explore the reason for similar and different views.
Face to Faith has been specifically designed to meet the varied needs of schools as they enter the 21st century. As well as enhancing religious literacy and preparing students for global citizenship, the project equips young people with critical skills including respectful dialogue, conflict resolution, leadership and co-operation.
The project is currently active in hundreds of schools across 12 countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Australia, Canada, US and the UK.
Although a new programme, Face to Faith is developing quickly and the enthusiasm that we find amongst students, educators and legislators across the world suggests that the approach we are advocating is very much of the moment - people globally recognize the need to prepare young people to contribute positively to a rapidly changing and complex global society.
Partnering Organization(s):
Global Nomads
Intuitive Media
Advisory group of 50+ educational experts
Specific US advisory group including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Center for Law and Justice and the National Council for the Social Studies.
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Country: United Kingdom
Email: Annika.small@tonyblairfaithfoundation.org
Website: www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org
Tel: +44 (0) 207 647 7880
Fax: +44 (0) 207 647 7887
Contact: Annika Small
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was founded by the Right Honourable Tony Blair and launched in May 2008. The Foundation’s goals are to promote respect and understanding between people of faith and those of none, show the relevance of faith to the challenges of the 21st century, and make the case for faith as a force for good by encouraging multi-faith action to tackle global poverty and conflict. The TBFF approach is highly collaborative with an emphasis on working with partners to improve understanding about and among different faiths.
Project Mission: To support encounter, exploration and exchange between school students of different faiths across the world in order to improve understanding and respect.
Project Objective(s): Face to Faith encourages young people and their wider communities to become genuine global citizens; open-minded, outward-looking, respectful of others’ rights; enriched with mutual understanding; and critically, able to demonstrate social and mediation skills. These skills are crucial in the 21st century as they will increase global awareness and enable young people to engage in civil dialogue within their own communities as well as with others.
Face to Faith uses a syllabus developed by 52 educational experts to engage students across the world in discussion of global issues through different religious and cultural lenses. The modules and projects, which range from the environment to charity to human rights, bring students together to discuss a range of opinions and perspectives on issues of common concern.
Face to Faith seeks to give young people opportunities to develop relationships with one another across the globe, to establish meaningful dialogue with each other, to face and to overcome prejudices, and to teach and learn from one another about the rich diversity of their cultures and beliefs, and the commonalities of human experience. Direct interaction between students is an important component in combating the ignorance and fear of religious and cultural differences.
Interestingly, the students move quickly from dialogue to joint social action, identifying projects to work on together to address the global issues that they have discussed in class.
Target group(s): Secondary school students and teachers
Geographical scope(s) of project: Europe, Middle East, Asia, North America and Australia
Countries involved:
UK
Australia
Canada
India
Indonesia
Jordan
Lebanon
Palestine
Pakistan
Singapore
Thailand
USA
One page summary about the project: Attached.
US involvement/ contribution within the project :Face to Faith has a US advisory group comprising directors from ACLU, ACLJ, the National Council for the Social Studies and the First Amendment Center as well as representatives from the Christian Educators Association, the American Jewish Committee, the Islamic Networks Group, the Baptist Joint Committee and superintendents from numerous states. This advisory group is helping to introduce Face to Faith in US public schools and supporting the links between US students and their peers in the Middle East.
Achievements/progress to date:
Face to Faith active in 12 countries and linking thousands of young Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists as well as those of no faith in discussion around the role of faith in today’s world.
Students moving from dialogue to action by identifying joint projects to address global issues
Face to Faith contributes to the International Baccalaureate and also the ‘Global Perspectives’ International GCSE assessed by Cambridge Assessment.
Developed a US advisory group that is actively helping to introduce the program in US public schools.
The programme is being independently evaluated by Warwick University.
Contact person for the project:
Annika Small
Annika.small@tonyblairfaithfoundation.org
