Summary: Third day ot the forum
Closing day of the Forum began with a speech of Žaneta Ozoliņa, Professor University of Latvia, emphasizing different challenges and topicalities of international policy. Ms Ozoliņa encouraged participants to recall a variety of recent events that directly or indirectly affected numerous countries or caused wide resonance in the world, thereby underlining our common interaction and mutual co-addiction. Stressing the responsibility of educators, Ž. Ozoliņa urged teachers to explain the meaning of the information war, and stressed that cyberspace is vulnerable and it is easy to be manipulated. Ž. Ozoliņa stressed that we must learn to distinguish right from wrong and to learn the most important of all skills - the ability to be human.
With a workshop on the role of educators in the multipolar world, Albrecht Ansohn of the German NGO Impuls involved participants in an active discussion process. Participants gained practical methodological insight on how a safe and supportive environment can foster discussions on controversial issues in society. Participants discussed topics of migration, expressed attitudes about refugees in their own countries. Workshop expanded understanding of refugees' situation, gave ideas on how to talk about these issues with different audiences.
A workshop for youth was carried out today by NGO GLEN Latvia representatives, Elīna Dzelzkalēja and Silvija Pūpola. Students were encouraged to face their stereotypes, virtually re-discover different countries, and think about the global distribution of resources in the world. The workshop concluded with two fascinating stories about Elīna’s and Silvija’s participation in GLEN global education learning program and 3 months internships in Georgia and Uganda.
The Forums was concluded by the panel discussion which brought together representatives from different fields - the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Latvian National Commission for UNESCO, Latvian and foreign NGOs, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, as well as teachers and youth representatives.
Forum is financed by the State of Latvia.