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The Steve Sinnott Foundation’s unique online community exists to build and motivate a worldwide movement in support of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for education - that, by 2015, every child in the world should have access to a full course of primary schooling and that gender disparities at all levels of education should be removed . The Foundation’s mission is to assist securing quality basic education for the world’s 67 million “out-of-school” children.
The Foundation was established in the name of Steve Sinnott, the late General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (England and Wales) UK. He was, until his sudden and tragic death in 2008, an internationally renowned teacher trade unionist who was passionate about children’s right to education. Steve's reputation around the world has provided the foundation with a unique opportunity to reach out to teachers everywhere and to recruit them into the movement for education for all.
Confluence powers our online community at www.stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk. It is central to our work in building facilities for teachers, charities, children’s rights activists and community groups. Confluence has enabled these groups to exchange their experience and expertise as members of an international online community. Atlassian partners Adaptavist host, support, and customised our website using Confluence and the Theme Builder and Community Bubbles plugins to meet some of our specific needs.
The online community unlocks the potential of ordinary people around the world to bring about positive change in three ways:
First, it enables collaboration and sharing of information across continents to bring about improvements in educational opportunities by providing a facility to connect schools that need help with people who can provide support and assistance.
The website provides promotion and marketing opportunities to community initiatives in education. Project leaders, heads of charities, community activists and volunteers are able to create their own project pages in the community. They give details of their work and appeal for support. The Foundation itself then tries to link these projects to large funders, donors and networks whilst other community members – ordinary people, working teachers and educators in particular – can directly offer their support using the Confluence facilities within the community. The community is providing a much needed international visibility to projects that would otherwise find it difficult to connect with potential supporters.
Second, the online community serves as a virtual learning and information sharing platform. The blogging facility in Confluence allows the organisation to share news with other groups in the community. Discussion forum facilities provided by Community Bubbles allow for information sharing and discussion of educational issues across these Communities. Using these facilities, we aim to create a knowledge network of best practice and ideas and report on developments in education around the world.
Third, Confluence facilitates the educational exchange and the sharing of knowledge and skills to bring about better educational opportunities, linking up and uniting educators and removing territorial boundaries. The community enables us to reach out to teachers around the world and unite them in the movement to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for education. Within the community, teachers and educators have the opportunity to connect directly with community projects posted on the website. They can donate much needed cash, books , computers and other items of school equipment. They can share their skills, ideas and know-how. They can link schools together across tens of thousands of miles enabling the children in these schools to cross geographical and cultural boundaries. Perhaps most important of all, the community provides the opportunity for the passion felt by teachers to educate to be shared. Small communities struggling to satisfy the enthusiasm of their children to be educated can be encouraged by the knowledge that their efforts are supported by others eager to show solidarity in common cause and purpose.
Already, after less than one year of actively promoting the community, we have over 450 online community members. We are hosting details of 80 grassroots projects in Africa, Asia, and South America, and we are working to link those projects to donors and sponsors. As a result of our work, 300 children now have access to quality primary education in the remote Palpa district of West Nepal, and a number of volunteers recruited from within the online community are connecting with this project. We shall shortly be announcing a major teacher development project in Sierra Leone.
We are supported by the UK’s major teacher organisations. We are members of the Global Campaign for Education UK coalition and partners of Education International in the drive to achieve the MDGs. We are developing our contacts with teachers’ organisations in the US, Canada, India, Israel and Palestine and Australia with the aim of attracting large numbers of their members into the community.
None of this would be possible without Atlassian’s community licence for the Confluence software and it’s flexibility. Confluence has enabled us to build up a community and a way of sharing information across the globe, linking up communities, schools and teachers who have been brought together and are able to help each other to provide educational opportunities across the globe.
Winning the Atlassian do-gooder award would mean a great deal to the Steve Sinnott Foundation. It would mean the opportunity to attend the Atlassian Summit which we otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend. This will put us in touch with other organisations and individuals who use Confluence, helping us to understand the software better and gain and insight into the way Confluence has been used by other organisations and communities. We hope to use this information to improve our own use of Confluence. In the sprit of knowledge sharing across communities, we also hope to be able to share our successes and failures so that others will benefit from our experience.
The exposure we’d gain by attending the event will be an obvious benefit to us bringing our organisation to the attention of others who are passionate about providing education for all and would be able to contribute to our community.
The $10,000 will help us to do the following things :
List or describe how the 10,000 will be used.
Version 1
The Steve Sinnott Foundation’s unique online community exists to build and motivate a worldwide movement in support of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for education - that, by 2015, every child in the world should have access to a full course of primary schooling and that gender disparities at all levels of education should be removed . The Foundation’s mission is to assist securing quality basic education for the world’s 67 million “out-of-school” children.
The Foundation was established in the name of Steve Sinnott, the late General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (England and Wales) UK. He was, until his sudden and tragic death in 2008, an internationally renowned teacher trade unionist who was passionate about children’s right to education. Steve's reputation around the world has provided his wife Mary and three of his close colleagues and friends who established the Foundation, with a unique opportunity to reach out to teachers everywhere and to recruit them into one of the greatest efforts of our generation.
The Confluence based online community forms the core of the Foundation’s website at [www.stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk|]. It is central to our work in building facilities for teachers, charities, children’s rights activists and community groups to exchange their experience and expertise as members of an international online community.
The online community unlocks the potential of ordinary people around the world to bring about positive change in three ways:
First, it provides a promotion and marketing opportunities to community initiatives in education across the world. Project leaders, heads of charities, community activists and volunteers are able to create their own project pages in the community. They give details of their work and appeal for support. The Foundation itself then tries to link these projects to large funders, donors and networks whilst other community members – ordinary people, working teachers and educators in particular – can directly offer their support using the Confluence facilities within the community. The community is providing a much needed international visibility to projects that would otherwise find it difficult to connect with potential supporters.
Second, the online community serves as a virtual learning and sharing platform, making use of the Confluence news and discussion forum facilities and issue/activity based groups. Using these facilities, we aim to create a knowledge network of best practice and ideas and report on developments in education around the world.
Third, the community enables us to reach out to teachers around the world and unite them in the movement to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for education. Within the community, teachers and educators have the opportunity to connect directly with community projects posted on the website. They can donate much needed cash, books , computers and other items of school equipment. They can share their skills, ideas and know-how. They can link schools together across tens of thousands of miles enabling the children in these schools to cross geographical and cultural boundaries. Perhaps most important of all, the community provides the opportunity for the passion felt by teachers to educate to be shared. Small communities struggling to satisfy the enthusiasm of their children to be educated can be encouraged by the knowledge that their efforts are supported by others eager to show solidarity in common cause and purpose.
Already, after less than one year of actively promoting the community, we have over 450 online community members. We are hosting details of 80 grassroots projects in Africa, Asia, and South America, and we are working to link those projects to donors and sponsors. As a result of our work, 300 children now have access to quality primary education in the remote Palpa district of West Nepal, and a number of volunteers recruited from within the online community are connecting with this project. We shall shortly be announcing a major teacher development project in Sierra Leone.
We are supported by the UK’s major teacher organisations. We are members of the Global Campaign for Education UK coalition and partners of Education International in the drive to achieve the MDGs. We are developing our contacts with teachers’ organisations in the US, Canada, India, Israel and Palestine and Australia with the aim of attracting large numbers of their members into the community.
None of this would be possible without Atlassian’s community licence for the excellent Confluence software and the skill, expertise and commitment of our website hosts Adaptavist, in the UK who have been enormously helpful to us in building and developing our website and its community. The award to the Steve Sinnott Foundation of Atlassian’s do-gooder award would be a great boost to our efforts and Atlassian would have not the slightest doubt that it would be applied to the best of causes.