Led by Ellen Corby Lourdes Youth & Community Services (LYCS), this session covered the evaluation of LYCS Global Citizenship through Theatre programmes, and the training they offer to services interested in the use of participatory methods to explore complex social justice issues and their solutions in an active, positive way.

The session was led by the team behind DEFY, a 3-year collaboration between STAND, Comhlámh, finep and Zavod-Voluntariat. Participants learnt about how to build educator reflexivity and a readiness to host others in their learning.

Led by Suzie Cahn and Hannah Mole of Carraig Dulra, this session explored how permaculture education served as a collaborative, empowering, and regenerative force within communities. They shared stories from over a decade of co-developing an inclusive Permaculture Design Course (PDC) rooted in community action and ecological ethics. Over 11 years, they have continuously evolved their teaching to reflect the permaculture principle "integrate rather than segregate," working to welcome and include marginalised communities, both long-established and newly arrived in Ireland.

 Led by Victoria Trimble of Habitat for Humanity Ireland, this session highlighted their recent Global Citizenship Education (GCE) pilot project, ‘Community Connections’. This initiative aimed to integrate GCE into Habitat ReStore, the charity’s social enterprise, by increasing knowledge and understanding of local and global justice issues among stakeholders — including hard-to-reach groups — demonstrating the role of social enterprise in progressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and building capacity for informed, collective action.

Led by Lizzy Noone, Worldwise Global Schools, this Knowledge Share session focused on Pleasure Activism, a project of Creativity and Change 2025. In her book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019), Adrienne Maree Brown discusses various barriers that people face in accessing pleasure, particularly those from marginalised communities.

 Led by A Partnership with Africa, this session focused on Global Education Time (GET), a GCE initiative for Irish post-primary schools that provides educators with Junior Cycle curriculum-linked resources such as a Geo-History textbook, designed to foster critical thinking and active engagement among students. Beyond classroom resources the initiative is focusing on other areas including youth action and strategic partnerships with civil society organisations and initial teacher education.

 Led by Euphomia Edward AkiDwa, this session focused on ‘Amplifying Unheard Voices’, and explored the Unheard Voices report, which highlighted the experiences of migrant women living in emergency accommodation centres in Ireland. Rooted in AkiDwA’s Global Citizenship Education (GCE) approach, the Unheard Voices report was the result of creating space for dialogue on inequality—especially for women whose stories were often left untold.

This session was led by Emma Lynch from Tearfund Ireland. Participants learned bout the fact that although it is usually done with the best of intentions, research shows that volunteering in orphanages fuels systems that separate children from their families, harms their development and increases the risk of them being abused.

Led by Fiona Duignan Meath Partnership, this session focused on the Integrate GCE resource toolkit. The Integrate toolkit is for educators, youth workers, youth, migrants, community and voluntary workers and comprises of a comprehensive E-book of three modules: introduction to GCE, the Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights, all of which are accompanied by a presentation for facilitators

This session was led by Grainne O’Neill from Síolta Chroí.  Participants learned about the involvement of Síolta Chroí in the Erasmus+ project, ‘Soil, Soul, Society’, and shared their learnings and experiences with Development Education.

This session was led by Claire Glavey and Ailbhe Joyce of Global Village. They presented updates on research, including “Teachers and Global Citizenship Education: Values, Attitudes and Practices—A Research Report on a National Survey of Irish Primary Teachers and Global Citizenship Education.” Global Village resources for GCE in primary schools were shared, including two cross-curricular guides accompanying the picture books ‘The Day War Came’ and ‘The Promise’.

Led by Nick Doran this session looked at the experience of Saolta, how the partnership works, the lessons learned, the benefits gained, and the importance of partnership for GCE/DE. Development Perspectives is the lead partner in Saolta which is funded by Irish Aid, and consists of Aontas, Maynooth University Department of Adult and Community Education, Irish Rural Link, Concern Worldwide, and Cork Education and Training Board, which joined the partnership in 2024. Partnerships are vital to achieving a better, more equitable and sustainable world for all. The strength of the partnership lies in the diversity of knowledge, skills, access and experience that each partner brings, which includes large memberships, smaller organisations and individuals

Led by Colette Saunders, Trócaire, this session explored the intersection of Development Education, Global Citizenship, and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) practice and provision. It also dived deep into the interrelatedness between the Aistear practice framework, Global Citizenship, and Development Education concepts. This session brought these connections to the forefront, enhancing understanding and applying these critical areas in professional practice in the early years. The concept of sustainability, as defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future, From One Earth to One World’, was used as a lens to explore these links, with a specific focus on sustainability as a ‘way of being’.

Led by Dr. Eilish Dillon, Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the Department of International Development at Maynooth University, it focused on approaches and resources organisations use for ethical communications training. This is part of your Irish Research Council New Foundations research with Dóchas, aims to explore and share learning and training practices within Irish NGOs. The session began with presentation of findings from a survey on ethical communications training among Dóchas members, followed by an open discussion.

Led by Sive Bresnihan this focuses on the journey of E-TICK, an award-winning online course on ethical communication, launched in 2020 by Comhlámh and partners across Europe, including Slovakia and the Czech Republic. As we navigate an increasingly 'image' and 'news' saturated world, the course's central questions about our roles as creators and consumers of messages have become even more pertinent. E-TICK 2.0 is set to launch very soon, and this session shaded light on the development and piloting of this latest version and how the E-TICK 2.0 writing team has endeavoured to live up to E-TICK's core principles of critical thinking and reflexivity

Led by Lizzy Noone, this session explored how to utilize these principles most effectively in order to guide all work within the GCE sector, foster open discussions and encourage everyone to act as critical friends. WWGS has recently revised their guiding principles to enhance accessibility in their work. They presented these updated principles to colleagues in the sector. This initiative underlines WWGS’s commitment to transparency, inclusivity and continuous improvement in delivering high quality programmes in the sector

This focuses on the findings of a feasibility study into Charity Shops as a Global Citizenship Education site, and was led by Mella Cusack, A Partnership with Africa. It looks at APA's Get up and Goals project's work to determine the potential of charity shops as a site for Global Citizenship Education.

This session led by Fiona Duignan, shared Meath Partnership’s Innovative approach to Inclusion through GCE for ACE practitioners and volunteering of migrants/refugees and asylum seekers in Meath.

This provides an introduction to Maynooth University's Certificate in Global Citizenship Education and was led by Dr Tom Campbell, Maynooth University. It looks at how the programme was designed and delivered as a collaborative (inter Department) initiative, the kinds of content covered, and how it endeavours to meet the principles and indicators found in the Code of Good Practice for Development Education.

This focuses on the baseline’s insights derived from Saolta’s research and work in this area, and was led by Sara Hurley from Saolta. The session also highlights the opportunities for the sector for building capacity, trends in participation and collaboration in future research.

In this Knowledge Share Alex shared  insights into how Erasmus+ Just Action project has developed from the application process and the different features of Erasmus+ projects including the application of Design Thinking to diverse project management tools. He also shared challenges and opportunities of working on an Erasmus+ partnership.

Myra McAuliffe Project Coordinator Inishowen Development Partnership, led the session where participants explored about ‘Home’ by providing Global Citizenship Education to Adults in the Community in Donegal’. Members will learnt about a time when the defective blocks crisis is causing havoc in County Donegal and how  ChangeMakers Donegal has employed its practice of merging community development work with global citizenship education to examine the theme of home, homelessness and the global refugee crisis using creative methodologies such as story exchange and a book club with no books.

Delivered by Dr Caroline Munyi, participants explored about how AkiDwA is actively integrating Global Citizenship Education into their programmes to raise awareness about migrants' rights impacts of sexual and gender-based violence, dismantling racism and curbing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by putting cultural competence at the centre of this interaction with key professionals.

Led by Tony, this session shares emerging items from the draft Guidelines for Producing DE/GCE resources (set for publication in September) and look at five spotlight resources to add to educator's 'back to school' reading list.

This focuses on the Generation Z and Climate Change - Anxieties and Opportunities, and was led by Barry Peak, Young Social Innovators. It explores the work carried out by Young Social Innovators in partnership with Amárach Research to gain insights into Ireland's young people on issues such as mental health, employment opportunities, education and their hopes for the future.

This focuses on the Comhlámh Put Children First campaign, and was led by Emma Lynch, Tearfund Ireland. It explores why Development Education approaches are so important when seeking to challenge the practice of volunteering in orphanages.

This focuses on the Amplifying Voices Project by Development Perspectives, and was led by Paul Crewe, Development Perspectives. The project, which won an AONTAS Star Award 2022, supported migrant communities to engage with cultural and educational activities for social integration, and included podcasting and storytelling where migrants shared their stories of moving to Ireland.

This focuses on Exploring the world of Erasmus+ in Adult and Community Education, and was led by Stephanie Kirwan, Meath Partnership.

This focuses on Ethical Education, and was led by Susana Núñez & Vera Shanahan, Educate Together. It looks at the Learn Together curriculum, at primary level, and the Ethical Education curriculum, at second level, their links to Global Citizenship Education, embedding these across the school, and the Knowledge-Values-Action approach taken.

This focuses on Global Village, and was led by Claire Glavey and Elisha Kelly, Global Village. It explores this new strategic partnership for Global Citizenship Education at primary level between Irish Aid, DCU, INTO, IPPN and Trócaire.

This focuses on Being a partner in DEAR Projects, and was led by Jen Harris, Slí Waterford. It explores learning around participation, specifically for small organisations, in DEAR-funded projects.