Humanae.ED - Valuing every colour through art

HumanaeED is a platform that provides STEAM resources and training for teachers to lead students in conversations about human diversity.

Intolerance related to race, religion, and color negatively affects self-esteem, personal achievement, and community relationships--particularly among young people in the areas in which they live and attend school. Within the classroom, intolerance becomes discrimination, removing one's ability to see value in one’s self and others: It muddies the beauty of diversity that marks authentic education.

HumanaeED empowers global educators to stand against discrimination by creating playful spaces for students and the communities in which they reside to discuss these complex and, vital issues.

Academic studies show that HumanaeED empowers children to value diversity and deconstruct discrimination (Cardellini, Margherita. (2018). Discorsi sul colore della pelle tra bambini di scuola primaria: parole, significati e pregiudizi.ity- University of Bologna)

Humanae began as Angelica Dass’ photographic art project before evolving into an educational platform that has reached over 500,000 children in diverse school communities. It continues to grow as educators, students, and families around the world struggling to find the best way to talk about -- and change -- attitudes about race, skin color, and ethnicity recognise its value.

HumanaeED consists of three parts:

1. The Humanae.org platform resources education communities to value conversations about identity, inclusion, equality, and diversity. This online platform includes classes, forums, and other tools and resources for the workshops. Developed for broad curricula in science, humanities, and the arts these resources guide teachers through important discussions about diversity. Additional spaces will allow teachers and students to share their Humanae experiences and ongoing work--from “traditional” classrooms to refugee camps-online with other members of our global community. The platform will be available in multiple languages.

2.Offline, Humanae is leveraging Angelica’s network of teachers, students and influencers to train Humanae Fellows across the globe. Fellows will use the train-the-trainer model to empower regional and local presenters to facilitate workshops in classrooms all over the planet, reaching the most isolated communities in their local languages. Modelled in CITY, the Czech Republic, with 40 secondary students trained to deliver workshops to 2500 local primary school students. An expanded workshop in Chile where 50,000 students were reached in 1 week.

3. The Humanae Institute is establishing training conferences to unite collaborators and educators alongside new attendees who are tackling racial issues within their communities.  Intended for low-income attendees from developing economies, as well as local educators, these training conferences will provide both training on how to organize Humanae workshops, as well as strategies and tools for community engagement and promoting systemic change.

Diversity flourishes through awareness, and awareness takes root in relationship. The Humanae Institute will utilise both current and emerging technology like H5P, Mixed Reality, Digital Galleries, and innovative learning management systems to link global learning communities. The ubiquitous and equalizing power of the internet will bring even the poorest communities into this relationship, allowing for effective resource sharing, teaching and learning among an ever-growing network of educators and students.

Technology is fundamental for the scalability and sustainability of the Humanae workshop program. An interactive portal providing educators, with access to materials to start discussions about diversity from a playful and confident place. Supported initially in English, Spanish and Portuguese the site will also serve as a safe place to exhibit and discuss the results of workshops.

So far the network of Humanae educators is deeply connected with the author who has worked with teachers from 37 countries. The goal is a platform that leverages these experiences and grows with the contributions of these experienced teachers supporting new program fellows.

In 12 months the objectives are to have:

1. Launched the online platform
2. Released resources in Portuguese, Spanish and English
3. Released lesson plans for art classes, biology, mathematics,computer science, civics and history.
4. Run the first Fellows forum for debate and exchange of experiences
5. Launched the first Online exhibition of student portraits
6. Produced a curriculum for teachers in training
7. Formalised agreements with local education authorities in Brazil, USA and Spain
8. Formalised financial support totalling 100% of the budget for three years
9. Formalised agreements to provide teacher training workshops in five Universities

We have the audacity to believe we can take this program to every child in the world through their teachers.  Creating a world where diversity is seen as a value not just in education but in every part of our community. Equality will be seen as a natural extension.

Combining the model used in the Czech Republic, training locals to run the workshops, with the scalability shown in Chile (50,000 students in one week). In four years we will have 7,000 Fellows, each connected to hundreds of local educators working with multiple classes each, reaching into every family.

1.     Initially through Angelica’s extensive network of educators and the organisations she has already worked with to identify areas of need and teachers to invite to the program.  With Solve support this program could also leverage the connections of the Solve community to deliver outcomes for their important communities.

2.    Through the online platform and with a training conference for
the 2019 Fellows program, then through a local train-the-trainer model.

3.    Via the platform based on the technology they have within their
community.

4.    Community exhibitions/retrospectives to show examples of change
over time.

The majority of Humanae users are teachers, who independently contact Angelica Dass. Formal approaches have been facilitated with Associations of adoptive parents, Universities, city Integration and immigration departments, NGOs and neighborhood associations.

Approximately 5300 educators in 37 countries, as in Spain with more than 500 teaching students or in  Chile in 1000 schools, in collaboration with Unesco and the Ministry of culture and education

Our feedback shows that Humanae workshops continually change people’s perspectives on issues around race and color, empowering people to see their own biases, figure out how to overcome them and to see diversity as a value.

In the next 12 months if nothing changes, 5,000 teachers will run Humanae workshops in classrooms around the world, easily reaching 150,000 students, this platform will allow Humanae Ed to leverage this to 10 - 20,000 teachers and over half a million students.

Angélica Dass is the head of Humanae. Her powerful creativity, diverse background, vision and determination have lead Humanae to create a global impact against racism and discrimination.

Derek Williamson, brings in experience in managing events for professional teachers’ development and strong links in teacher development research.

Isalo Montacute, strategist. She is a Program Manager at Google.   

Ana Cebrián is accessibility & collectives coordinator at Invisible Pedagogies. She is specialist in cultural mediation, training and self-management processes of children and teenagers.

Wendy Espinal, brings a wide set of skills in project management, ranging from local initiatives to a major international scale

The revenue model is based on four sources of income;

1. Corporate and foundation donations via 501c3 non-profit that has been established in the US for this purpose. The non-profit is well placed to manage the accounts and to maximise the returns from Angelica`s network of donors.
2. As an artist Angelica is commissioned to exhibit in partnerships with museums, ministries of education, governments. In the future these works will be tied to these organisations providing support for Humanae.Ed, facilitating training, supporting resource development and enabling local educators to participate in Humanae.
3. As a facilitator of these discussions Angelica will continue to collaborate with companies that can finance projects in schools and communities around their offices and factories.
4. Finally most participating schools will be asked to provide some level of payment – as they can afford to – to ensure the work can continue for other students.

These four streams acknowledge the community relationships the project provides, as well as leveraging current and future relationships. It also keeps the work tied to the original works and their important community message.  Finally this model allows participants at all levels to be uniquely connected to the outcomes and successes.

Our current model is limiting the impact and reach of this project.  The opportunity Solve offers to connect with like minded people, to access a network of people skilled in honing  technological solutions, and of course the access to a network share new ways to amplify the capable of funding the next step in the evolution of Humanae into a powerful tool to empower educators to bring healing to their communities divided by differences rather than united by values.  These opportunities are the great benefit of Solve for Humanae.

Perfecting technology solutions that can be accessed easily by educators regardless of location or equity, the network of expertise offered by Solve is integral to this success.

Being able to connect to financial partners to ensure the sustainability and scalability of our train the trainer activities is vital to our success.

Determining benchmarks and measuring impact will take a level of expertise that the Solve network will be essential in accessing.