Global Citizenship

COLOR YOUR LIFE

Shaan Cre­ations Inter­na­tion­al ini­ti­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs the project “Col­or Your Life”. “Col­or Your Life” is a project where the young gen­er­a­tion in the Nether­lands is encour­aged towards glob­al cit­i­zen­ship. The world around us is get­ting small­er by the pos­si­bil­i­ties through mod­ern social media. Con­tacts with peo­ple and insti­tu­tions from dis­tant coun­tries is becom­ing eas­i­er. There is so much infor­ma­tion avail­able on the inter­net. The social media brings us into con­tact with peo­ple from the oth­er cor­ner of the world in sec­onds.

The project “Col­or Your Life” is per­formed in two coun­tries name­ly the Nether­lands and Suri­name.

SURINAME

In Suri­name, many pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, and even the high schools are vis­it­ed with infor­ma­tion activ­i­ties con­cern­ing glob­al cit­i­zen­ship and sui­cide pre­ven­tion. The edu­ca­tion­al film “Silent Tears” is screened, the young peo­ple (stu­dents) get var­i­ous brochures hand­ed out, there are inter­ac­tive dis­cus­sions, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of assis­tance is offered, pre­sen­ta­tions are giv­en, etc. The par­ents of the stu­dents and peo­ple from the coun­try­side are pos­si­bly involved in the pro­gram activ­i­ties.

There is great inter­est in the project activ­i­ties and schools are will­ing­ly offer­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the project. Activ­i­ties are orga­nized in the morn­ings, after­noons and evenings as we want to reach as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble and give them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the activ­i­ties. Most activ­i­ties are car­ried out in the dis­tricts in the schools, through social insti­tu­tions, libraries, pub­lic author­i­ties and every­one can vis­it the pro­grams.

In addi­tion 25 pro­fes­sion­als and semi-pro­fes­sion­als are trained as social work­ers. After this train­ing they will be able to offer assis­tant to prob­lem chil­dren and prob­lem fam­i­lies. Assis­tance to chil­dren in the dis­tricts needs a lot of atten­tion because there are few facil­i­ties for this. Many chil­dren have to deal with neglect, abuse, domes­tic vio­lence, sex­u­al abuse, alco­hol abuse, men­tal health prob­lems, depres­sion etc. We as an orga­ni­za­tion have tak­en the ini­tia­tive to con­tribute in chang­ing that. Every school should have at least one coun­selor who can pro­vide help these chil­dren.

In the train­ing cours­es (col­lege lev­el) we teach sev­er­al themes such as: suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion, meta-com­mu­ni­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles, solu­tion based ther­a­py, depres­sion and sui­cide, behav­ioral prob­lems, aggres­sion, etc. The first train­ing ses­sion was real­ized in Para­mari­bo from Feb­ru­ary 27 to March 3 in 2012.

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

A cos­mopoli­tan is in search for uni­ty in diver­si­ty, what bonds us togeth­er cul­tur­al­ly and reli­gious­ly. Only when we rec­og­nize who we are, what val­ues ​​we have inher­it­ed and the diver­si­ty with­in our own com­mu­ni­ty, we can enter into dia­logue with oth­ers. A glob­al cit­i­zen is con­vinced that every­one is part of the same world. He pays atten­tion to and has knowl­edge of the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­text in which events occur. He has the abil­i­ty to see his life from a broad­er per­spec­tive and under­stand­ing. A cos­mopoli­tan cher­ish­es diver­si­ty and demon­strates real com­mit­ment and sol­i­dar­i­ty towards oth­er peo­ple. He knows that his behav­ior may have an impact on the envi­ron­ment, the ani­mals and the peo­ple on earth. Glob­al cit­i­zens real­ize that they are respon­si­ble for the future of every­one and they can solve com­mon prob­lems togeth­er. A cos­mopoli­tan strives for world democ­ra­cy. Par­tic­i­pa­tion at local and glob­al lev­els and by join­ing all forces and con­cerns from below, he can orga­nize and improve the world.