A group of educators led by Brock researcher Dolana Mogadime has launched a resource designed to help students from kindergarten to Grade 12 learn about Nelson Mandela in a global context.<\/p>\n
\u201cMandela Global Human Rights: Peace, Reconciliation and Responsibility: A Teacher Guide and Lessons for Educators<\/a>,\u201d which is also available in French<\/a>, includes a guide for educators and 14 lessons about Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.<\/p>\n Mandela spent 27 years in prison for opposing white minority rule in South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize with President FW de Klerk in 1993 for their work toward the peaceful end of apartheid. Mandela went on to become South Africa\u2019s first democratically elected President in 1994.<\/p>\n The resource\u2019s release coincides with the United Nations\u2019 (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination<\/a>, which is observed annually on March 21 to commemorate the 69 people killed by police during a peaceful demonstration against apartheid \u201cpass laws\u201d in Sharpeville, South Africa, in 1960.<\/p>\n Mogadime, Professor in Brock\u2019s Faculty of Education, is originally from South Africa and came to Canada at age seven. Her great-grandfather, Henry Selby Msimang, was a founding member of a political group that became the African National Congress, later led by Mandela. Her mother, Caroline\u00a0Goodie Tshabalala Mogadime, was recognized by the\u00a0Canadian Museum for Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0(CMHR) in its Mandela: Struggle for Freedom<\/em><\/a> exhibition for her contributions to Canada\u2019s anti-apartheid movement.<\/p>\n The Mandela teachers\u2019 guide was developed by Dolana Mogadime and members of the Teaching Nelson Mandela (TNM) Curriculum Project, which includes Brock researchers, students and alumni as well as K-12 school leaders and a visiting scholar.<\/p>\n At the centre of their work is the African humanist philosophy of Ubuntu.<\/p>\n \u201cThat interconnected humanistic approach from Ubuntu really was the life force of what Mandela had been envisioning,\u201d says Mogadime, who believes that focusing on the ideals of Ubuntu makes learning about the life and work of Mandela relevant for students in Ontario\u2019s classrooms today.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope these lessons help students to develop a sense of empathy and understanding across differences and also a sense of their own responsibilities around humanity and social action,\u201d she says. \u201cProviding examples of what that has looked like historically can inform students\u2019 understandings of what’s possible for them in their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n