Seminar in Lithuania on Development Education

In the end of March 2007, nineteen Lithuanian NGDOs had a conference where the platform of Lithuanian NGDOs was (re)established. Unfortunately the platform is not yet officially registered, due to long burocratic procedures, but registration is on the way. In the meanwhile, member organizations of the platform already took initiative and organized different seminars about development issues.

One of them was a development educaiton seminar organized on 3-5 October 2007 by the Lithuanian Kolping society (a member organization of the Lithuanian NGDO platform) in cooperation with the platform and with the big help of DOCHAS, the Irish NGDO platform. The trainers were TJ Hourihan and Brian Murtagh, both coming from the DOCHAS member organization YMCA. The title of the seminar was "Development Education: challenges, expectations, possibilties and practical solutions."

The aim of the seminar was:
- to provide practical and moral support to key development groups in Lithuania; to support them in their efforts to define instruments and approaches to achieve greater public support for development cooperation, and greater public awareness of how citizens can affect international inequality.

The seminar had the following objectives:
- To brainstorm about the challenges and possibilities of increasing the Lithuanian public awareness and understanding of global issues and of the interdependence of different countries.
- To explore current expectations, skills and possibilities of the Lithuanian NGOs to engage in meaningful activities to strengthen that awareness and understanding.

The target group of the seminar were members and staff of member organisations of the Lithuanian Development NGO Platform as well as members and staff of NGOs working in development education.

The seminar attracted 13 participants from 9 different NGOs. People who participated in the seminar were very happy about it as it was full of theoretical and practical information about the topic. It gave more experience and understanding how to offer information about development education to the Lithuanian citizens, how to make programs on development education, and what is important to take into account when doing such kind of education etc.

Information provided by Lina Kalibataite, Board member of the Lithuanian NGDO platform and National secretary of the Lithuanian Kolping society