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Our Project Partners
Lead partner
Malta
The University of Malta (UM) is a 400-year-old higher education public institution, with fourteen faculties and presently hosting over 11,000 students from nearly 92 different countries.
The Department of English at UM, under the Faculty of Arts, is lead partner on the Seen and Heard: Young People’s Voices and Freedom of Expression project, and is herein represented by the principal investigator, Dr Giuliana Fenech. Her academic and professional background involves work with children and young people, social justice, citizenship, multimedia storytelling, and community cultural and artistic projects.The Department runs degree programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, treating the study of English from a multitude of approaches, which are often multidisciplinary. Besides its success with other Key Stage 2 projects, the Department was honoured to have hosted the 2022 edition of the circuit conference, The Child and the Book, in Malta, with the theme, ‘The Role of the Child as Citizen: Constructing Childhood through Agency and Activism’. The conference was attended by delegates from 28 countries and its impact will be long-lasting as it outlined the importance of immediate political strategy change and radical new pedagogies to enhance engagement and active citizenship.
Partner
Poland
The University of Wrocław is a public research university with ten faculties, and a student body of over 23,000.
A partner on the Seen and Heard project, the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture at the Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, has focused its outreach and scholarly activities on collaborations with young readers, parents, educators, institutions of culture, and schools in Wrocław and in the Lower Silesia Region since its inception in 2003. These collaborations included reading and creative writing workshops and research projects aimed at intergenerational explorations of children’s culture.
With Dr. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak at the helm, the project will bolster its knowledge base and implementation with the latest on contemporary children’s literature and culture and childhood studies. Deszcz-Tryhubczak’s expertise is in participatory research with children, childhood studies and posthumanism. She has also taught courses on international children’s film and children’s and YA culture in the 21st century. Alongside her, Dr Mateusz Świetlicki contributes his expertise in Anglophone and Ukrainian children’s and Young Adult literature, historical fiction in particular, and the fields of memory studies, trauma theory, and gender studies.
Partner
Germany
Humboldt-Universität (HU) is the oldest higher education institution in Berlin. Founded at the start of the 19th century, the university has engaged in teaching and research activities in all of the fundamental academic disciplines in the humanities, social and cultural sciences, law, life sciences, mathematics and natural sciences, medicine, agricultural sciences and sustainability research, and ancient civilizations.
The Seen and Heard project will here be implemented by its partner at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin in the Department of the Didactics of German Literature and Language Teaching at primary schools, which is part of the Institute of Educational Sciences in the Faculty of Cultural, Social and Educational Sciences. Between key figures Prof Petra Anders and Dr Farriba Schulz, the project will enjoy expertise in spoken word as literature and a tool to empower the children and young adults, as well as conveying literary-aesthetic experiences through children’s literature, respectively.
Partner
Poland
Amnesty International Poland is a part of the wider Amnesty International movement (10 million members in more than 150 countries), which campaigns for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. Amnesty Poland is a leading expert on human rights issues, with a wide network among youth, schools, decision makers and media. It runs campaigns and advocacy work promoting human rights and the rule of law in Poland and in the whole world, with special focus on women’s rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression and assembly. It actively engages teachers, educators and young people in Human Rights Education and activism.
Since Amnesty International’s foundation in 1961, freedom of expression has been at the centre of its work. Not surprisingly, Amnesty International places great value on the power of children’s books and has a long track record with young people’s literary projects. It enjoys many close collaborations with writers and artists (often the first to be censored) in order to communicate human rights in simple, vibrant and creative ways.
Together with Nicky Parker, a consultant with over 20 years of experience in developing successful books and literary projects to empower children and young adults, Dr. Bartosz Borys and Katarzyna Salejko support the project as Human Rights Education and Activism Managers.
Academics
Prof. Stella Borg Barthet
University of Malta, Malta
Prof. Nina Christensen
Aarhus University, Denmark
Ass. Prof. Katherine Coleman
University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr Macarena Garcia Gonzalez
University of Glasgow, UK
Dr Blanka Grzegorczyk
University of Cambridge, UK
Dr Yasmine Motawy
The American University in Cairo, Egypt
Prof. Lydia Sciriha
University of Malta, Malta
Ms Rowena Seabrook
University of Glasgow, UK
Dr Aliona Yarova
Malmö University, Finland
Educators/Schools
Lino Borg, Marie Ann Ciantar, Dorianne Ferrante, Philip Pace
ct Clare Middle School, St Clare College, Pembroke, Malta
Charmaine Pisani Grixti
Kirkop Middle School, St Benedict College, Kirkop, Malta
Dr Sean Zammit
Gozo Middle School, Gozo College, Rabat, Gozo, Malta
Clarissa Fleri Soler, Joselle Bonett, Marvic Calleja Sciberras, Sarah Vassallo
St Joseph School (Senior Section), Sliema, Malta
Horace Gauci, Christina Calleja
St Albert the Great College, Valletta, Malta
Sue Midolo, Latimer Ebejer
St Catherine High School, Pembroke, Malta
Katarzyna Zwierzyńska-Paluszek, Yuliia Solomentseva
Primary School No. 1. Wrocław, Poland
Angelika Maier
Wedding-Schule Berlin, Germany
Organisations/ Institutions
Anna-Sophia Fritsche
Grips Theatre, Germany
Claudia Ehgartner
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart , Berlin, Germany
