Webinar Series: Exploring Contemporary Crises and Issues through Global Citizenship Education, ‘The Age of Cascading Crises’

Date: Tuesday 09 April, 12.30pm-2.00pm

Location: Online via zoom


IDEA is hosting a Webinar Series: Exploring Contemporary Crises and Issues through Global Citizenship Education. The second session in this series is entitled ‘The Age of Cascading Crises’ and will take place online via Zoom on Tuesday 09 April from 12.30pm-2.00pm.

 

This webinar focuses on a number of contemporary global challenges which appear to increase and accelerate each year. The webinar aims to strengthen our capacity to engage as educators to understand the connections between these crises and also increase our confidence to address them in educational settings.

 

This webinar will be moderated by Lizzy Noone from WorldWide Global Schools with inputs from Dr Aoife Titley and Patrick Marren both from Maynooth University who lead the design and development of modules on the Certificate in GCE (level-9 programme) offered by Maynooth University. This certificate provides a specialised learning experience in global citizenship education (GCE) for practitioners. During the webinar Aoife and Patrick will give you an introduction to what they see as contemporary crises and issues and how GCE can respond. The webinar will also provide a useful ‘taster’ for anyone considering registering for the Certificate in Maynooth to hear from two of the lecturers involved. There will also be a chance at the end to hear some logistical information about the course.


Register below!


Biographies

Dr. Aoife Titley Image


Dr. Aoife Titley is the lecturer in Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education, Maynooth University. Before becoming a teacher educator, she worked as an education researcher and a post-primary teacher. Her research in the community and voluntary sector includes projects for organisations such as the Irish Traveller Movement, Africa Centre, Debt and Development Coalition, Poetry Ireland, Carlow County Development Partnership and Extern Ireland/ HSE. She has also been involved in the design and development of numerous publications for primary schools, including for Amnesty International Ireland, and the Moral Education Curriculum of the United Arab Emirates (Pearson). Aoife was also the Programme Manager of the DICE Project for three years, of which the then Froebel College of Education was a partner institution. The DICE Project is a national strategic programme funded by Irish Aid which supports the embedding of development education and intercultural education into initial teacher education in Ireland. Further information is available at www.diceproject.ie.

Aoife Titley is the Co-Chairperson of the MU Sanctuary Committee, a collaborative community and cross-departmental initiative, working to make Maynooth University an inclusive space for students from asylum seeking and refugee backgrounds.



Patrick Image


Patrick Marren is an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of International Development at Maynooth University and the BA programme coordinator. He has over 30 years of lecturing experience in politics and economics and is interested in development indicators, the history of economic growth, systemic transitions, and the green economy.

Lizzy Noon  Image

Lizzy Noone has been working with schools on Global Citizenship Education and campaigning for 24 years. She has worked for WorldWise Global Schools for 9 years working with schools to have a whole school approach to global justice and equality.

She worked with Concern for 15 years previous to this, working on three EU funded projects including stop Child Labour. She has worked with Concern Debates and the Concern Campaign Academy that engaged students in GCE and campaigns. She represented Ireland on the European Development Education Forum for four years, and was an active member of the steering group of the Global Campaign for Education and Stop Climate Chaos for many years. She did the Transformative Learning Journey 2 with Bridge 47. She is a strong believer in degrowth and decolonisation.

October 8, 2025
We are looking for a consultant to design an interactive data visualisation tool for our Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education in Ireland. The consultant will lead the design or tailoring of off-the-shelf survey software and analytics software to our needs, in collaboration with IDEA staff. Please submit a tender including a description of stages in the development process, number of days, expected fee, and experience of relevant personnel for the work to be carried out to anya@ideaonline.ie . The deadline for application is Wednesday, 29 October, 5.00pm. Read the full terms of reference here.
October 6, 2025
After three remarkable years with IDEA, we are sad to share that Anya Sparynska is moving abroad to begin a new adventure. During her time with us, Anya made an indelible mark - first by shaping a pioneering programme role, and later by guiding us in a capacity development role that strengthened our impact across Ireland’s development education sector. From designing and implementing innovative initiatives to building partnerships and capacity across our member organisations, Anya has left IDEA stronger, more connected, and more ambitious for the future. “I am sad to leave at such a pivotal time in IDEA: we are faced with unspeakable horror, as the need for justice and accountability grows ever more urgent. I have seen, however, our members and staff respond with creativity, humanity and dedication to these challenging times and find inspiration in it, even at this darkest hour. A desire to be close to my family and the pressure of the housing crisis have driven me to Brussels, but I know I will be back as Ireland - it’s passionate, brave and kind people - now feels like home. I will be sure to follow IDEA and our members’ work closely in the coming year and hope to stay in touch! “Working at IDEA has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Seeing ideas and passion turn into real impact and change has been incredibly fulfilling - I’ll carry those lessons, and the very special friendships made along the way with me always.”
September 26, 2025
Date: Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm Location: Online via Zoom IDEA is thrilled to invite members to the online launch of our new “Theory of Impact for Global Citizenship Education” on Tuesday, 04 November, from 3.30–4.30pm, Online via Zoom. During this session, we will present the model, share insights into the process behind its development, and explore how it will be used to strengthen impact across the sector. We will also introduce a new tool in progress, an interactive data visualisation map designed to showcase our collective impact as a network. For many years, IDEA and its members have been grappling with the concept of impact in Development Education/Global Citizenship Education (GCE). As GCE practitioners, tracking impact helps us to identify how, where and with whom our work is creating positive change, as well as investigating areas in which our impact could be stronger. Furthermore, we can also benefit from examining the collective impact of GCE carried out by the wide-ranging work of IDEA members, and from exploring how these impacts contribute to the major social changes to which the GCE community aspires. Driven therefore by the need to understand how projects and programmes are collectively “making a difference” in IDEA we looked at models that could help us visualise and capture GCE “impact networks”. We formulated our vision of impact and then a theory of how we expect this desired impact to be achieved to allow us to map our activities and collect data to corroborate that theory. This Theory of Impact model is how we hope to illustrate this complex GCE impact network. Building on work done by IDEA over many years including building sectoral capacity in using Results Frameworks for GCE, our Quality & Impact working group, engagement with Irish Aid on their Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), and the successful roll-out of a Code of Good Practice for DE/GCE, this Theory of Impact represent the next stage of our effort to ‘develop a consistent approach to measuring impact among the sector’. We are therefore thrilled to invite you to the presentation of our ‘Theory of Impact for GCE’. At this online presentation, we will tell you about the process that led to the creation of this model, how it will be used and what we hope it could bring to the sector. We will also touch on a new tool being developed based on the model, which should allow the creation of an interactive data visualisation map of our collective impact as a network. Join us as we launch into this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Join us as we begin this exciting new phase of our Impact Measurement work. Register below!