ChildSpeak activities are designed to:

• develop literacy, numeracy and critical thinking skills
• promote a greater understanding and appreciation of others’ culture and place
• facilitate community and global citizenship through children’s empowerment
• allow children to have a voice in how they are educated

ChildSpeak activities are chosen so they will integrate into existing curricula in both Africa and Canada. They are also intended to provide new lesson plans for all teachers involved and to facilitate the creation of resources which can be used from year-to-year. It is compulsory that children participate fully in any ChildSpeak planning done by teachers and that they be encouraged to take the lead in deciding how themes will be approached.

In Ghana, ChildSpeak teachers from all regions meet regularly to discuss projects and decide upon next steps. A number of eleven and twelve year old children attend, marking the first time in Ghanaian basic education that such a participatory style has been adopted.

Once an activity has been implemented, it is added to the ChildSpeak collection for other teachers and countries to access. This means ChildSpeak is constantly evolving as children and teachers add their ideas to the mix. Some examples of ChildSpeak activities which have been addressed to date:

• Development and exchange of learning centres dealing with topics such as global oil consumption, endangered species, the importance of landmarks, cultural artifacts and symbols, terrorism, map reading.
• “World Day” - a whole school activity conducted on both continents
  aimed at raising awareness around the Millennium Development Goals.
• Projects and discussions on weighty topics such as safe drinking water, rain forest destruction, global warming, corruption, endangered species, child soldiers, conflict diamonds, child labour, free elections.
• Personal responses to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• Illustrated information books about the learners’ countries and regions.
• Game, song, recipe, story and country-specific alphabet book sharing.
• Exchange of Geography Trading Cards, hand-made culture puzzles, family trees.
• My Special Places and My Favourite Animals art and literacy projects.
• Data analysis / graphing lessons using HIV/AIDS rates, malaria statistics, poverty indicators.
• Personal reflection upon questions posed to both sides – What do I value? What do I want for theworld? What is snow? What are dunes? What is my heritage? How do I define myself? What is aglobal citizen? What do I do during a typical day?