Project Ideas
There are many projects taking place around the world. These are some
ideas for teachers to develop in their schools, or why not link up with another school in a different part of the world? Under each project idea you can find a school to link with through the International Transatlantic Slave Trade (TST) Education Project Directory.

Many of the following are examples of good practice developed by schools participating in UNESCO's ASPnet Transatlantic Slave Trade education project.

Write a poem about the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Africa, the Atlantic crossing or Middle Passage, the Atlantic world, places of memory, resistance, emancipation, the International Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (23 August), slavery today… These are just some suggested themes that students could write a poem about. But they will have their own ideas. The length and form of the poem can be determined according to the level of the class. They can be short poems, long poems, free verse or rhymed verse. Or they can be ‘acrostic’ poems, which is a poem where the first letter of each line spells a word when it is read downwards. You could choose some short words, for example ‘Africa’, and then students could use this as the basis for their poem. The first line would begin with ‘A’, the second with ‘F’, etc. They can be turned into posters in art class using paint, calligraphy, crayons etc.
Find a partner school at:
http://www.unesco.org/education/asp/flagship/tstlist.shtml

Exploring African Art
Introduce students to different African Art forms, for example masks, which have been a very important feature of African cultures and societies for more than five thousand years. The mask spirit is known to come alive through music and dance. Students could make their own masks from any number of materials, from wood to paper. The picture is of two masks made during a UNESCO Breaking the Silence cultural youth festival in Britain in 2000.
Find a partner school at:
http://www.unesco.org/education/asp/flagship/tstlist.shtml

Youth or School Exchanges
Linking up with schools overseas by email or through letters can be a lot of fun. You can make new friends and learn about different cultures. Following it up with a trip to the school, or by inviting the school to visit you, can be a very exciting way of meeting the friends you have made in different countries. Students could stay together in a youth hostel or with a family, which is a much better introduction to different ways of living, new languages, customs and values.
Find a partner school at:
http://www.unesco.org/education/asp/flagship/tstlist.shtml

Organise an international youth festival
If you are feeling up to organising something on a larger scale which involves students from more than one country, then how about a youth festival? If it is themed, for example, ‘learning about the slave trade and its legacies’, then you could invite lots of interesting workshops leaders to be involved in your programme. If the host city, town or village is linked to the slave trade, students could go on a tour of places of memory, they could learn about different art forms – for example music, dance, or song which existed before Europeans arrived in Africa. A good motto to remember, is that we all learn best by ‘doing’, so be sure to organise a diverse and participatory programme.
Find a partner school at:
http://www.unesco.org/education/asp/flagship/tstlist.shtml

Learning from older people
Older people are the carriers of history. In traditional African societies, oral history is the way that events and stories from the past reach the present day. They are passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth rather than by writing them down. You could invite an older person to your school to share stories, legends or anecdotes from their earlier days. Depending on where you are in the world, they might relate directly to the slave trade or maybe they just relate to the legacies that it left on the world. Try to encourage students to remember what they hear without writing it down, so they can create their own oral histories.
Find a partner school at:
http://www.unesco.org/education/asp/flagship/tstlist.shtml