Going Glocal Program
A collaboration with UCR: UCR’s Going Glocal programme is a pioneering effort in education for global citizenship in The Netherlands. It aims to foster education and research geared towards social responsibility and the exercise of critical citizenship among university students. The programme connects UCR and its students with local communities in Africa, Latin America and Asia in order to explore global issues in local contexts, at home and abroad, through cultural exchange, dialogue, sharing, practice, and research. The programme’s framing is grounded on current literature in the fields of democratic citizenship, global justice, and decolonial understandings.
In 2022, UCR’s Going Glocal programme will collaborate with its sister college, University College Utrecht, in order to address issues of global justice and activism in Mexico. After a semester-long intensive preparatory course in Middelburg and Utrecht (Spring term), students participate in a global citizenship field course in Mexico (Summer term). During the summer course, students work together with local youth, social activists, and community organisations, and they take part in learning and research activities that promote cross-cultural exchange, dialogue and understanding. The programme cycle thus involves: 1) a preparatory course that prepares students to travel across worlds of meanings, practices and materialities using innovative pedagogies; 2) a field trip of local engagement where students come to live and learn with communities of the Global South; and 3) a period of reflection on the development of attitudes, knowledge and skills relating to global citizenship more generally.