Over the past six months, The Converging World, in collaboration with the Knowle West Media Centre, has been developing an exciting Twinning Programme for Schools. The concept of twinning has always been at the heart of TCW. This idea of ‘connecting communities’ has remained a constant theme throughout the charity’s development and it is an integral part of our vision for how we continue our journey towards one planet living.

For its first pilot project, TCW has brought together Greenfields Primary School in Knowle West, Bristol, and the Ramakrishna Sarada Samiti Centre (RKSS) in Mumbai, India, to support young people in their respective communities. The project has encouraged and enabled meaningful and reciprocal relationships to form, and through these the young people have started to explore issues around the environment, sustainability and citizenship. The aims are (from an early age) to increase the young peoples’ awareness of common social and environmental issues both globally and locally, the importance of working together to tackle these issues, and the need for everyone to work together towards a converging world. By doing this, the project hopes to have a long-term impact on the young people’s understanding of the world and to enable them to have a more active role in the global community.

The pilot has been running since January 2012 and will be completed by April 2012. It has been a fascinating process and much has been learnt. After a period of evaluation, we aim to roll out the programme again in September of this year and we hope to be able to offer more schools the opportunity to engage.

For more information about the project, please contact Anita Beardsley (anitabeardsley@theconvergingworld.org).