Team Hope in Africa: Why Team Hope and Ireland AM Should Give Teachers (and Pupils) A Break!

Team Hope in Irish Classrooms: Where is the Learning Aspect?

On the 17^th of September, 2017, Team Hope launched its annual Christmas Shoebox Appeal, with TV3's Ireland AM as the media partner.

"Team Hope and Ireland AM are asking people to double their own impact this year by encouraging their friends, family members or colleagues to get involved and ensure that even more children experience the joy of receiving a gift.

Every shoebox counts, because every child counts and for these children (whose families typically live on less than €1 a day) this gift from Ireland may be the only present they will receive this Christmas." was how the appeal was carried on the Tv3 website on Friday, 20 October 2017.

So, basically, Team Hope (with the support of Ireland AM) thinks children in their selected countries are desperately in need of presents at Christmas and which it sets about to provide through the time and efforts of Irish schoolchildren.

Over the following two months, Team Hope have then gone into classrooms all over the country to ask the children to make up the shoe boxes and fill these with specified items to be sent to Team Hope, together with €4 in cash. These boxes are then sent to the selected named countries.

Source: Team Hope Stories-Pre-Schools

It might seem like the height of ingratitude, if not outright rudeness, to be seen to be critical of an action which is intended to be good or beneficial to the recipients.

However, uncomfortable questions need to be asked about the 'why' we decide to do something for someone and the 'how' we go about doing this, if we are to achieve the outcome which people from the target countries, especially those living in Ireland, would be happy with. "I don't recognise the country Team Hope is describing", was how a national from one of the recipient countries once remarked.

What should take place in classrooms?

The classroom is the place where learning (including, about other places and peoples) is expected to take place. So, how does Team Hope's Shoebox appeal contribute to learning about the world around us, and in particular, about the selected countries in Africa?

Does Team Hope's materials about the countries they work in offer and present new information about African countries or merely confirm old prejudices?

Here is Team Hope's information about the DR Congo prepared for Pre-School children:

So, Team Hope thinks the first thing four and five year-old Irish children should be taught about the DR Congo (if they can get their little minds around where DR Congo is in the first place) is that "people live in huts made of mud".
Looking at the materials and the narrative Team Hope uses to make the case and to gain the support of schools, one would have to question what its presence in schools is intended to achieve and for whose benefit.

Schools have to follow a defined curriculum detailing and specifying what pupils need to learn, and with teachers given the responsibility of delivering the contents of this curriculum.

Snowfall in Lesotho

Until quite recently, most Irish people's contacts with Africans have also been from a distance.

These days, Irish people live next door to Africans, work with them, while their children also sit and share lessons with children of African parentage in the same classrooms.

One wonders how the children of African parentage, like Professor Plastow's son, sitting in the same classrooms Team Hope goes into, are made to feel about the kind of information they are given portraying their parents' countries of origin.

St. Mark's Primary School, Mbabane. Founded in 1910

Perhaps, any person or organisation also intending to go into the classrooms might consider having a look at the Teacher Guidelines of the SESE Geography Curriculum and ask themselves if what they are offering fits in with the requirements of the curriculum, especially the unit People and Other Lands.

Demands on Teachers and the effects on some of the pupils in their care

Teachers have enough to cope with, without having to take on things which contribute nothing to the learning process or better understanding of the world out there. 
Not to mention, how to ensure that some of the pupils in their care are not left to feel like Professor Plastow's son.
Note: Professor Jane Plastow was in Galway in October, 2009 where she co-presented a paper: Africans Don't Use Mobile Phones with her colleague Richard Borowski at a conference organised by the Development Education and Research Network (DERN) at NUI, Galway.

African Cultural Project