Red Chair Experiences from Around the World

As Jesuit schools we always aim to educate our students as men and women for and with others, as global citizens who will question and speak out against social injustices and take responsibility to make a positive change in this world. One of the ways in which schools around the world have been doing this is over the last few years is by implementing the Global Red Chair Project.

Over the past few years we have been sharing experiences of schools around the world implementing this powerful global action project with the aim of inspiring other schools to adapt and implement the project in their own classrooms.

Here are a couple of the experiences we have shared so far from the six Jesuit regions of the world..

Africa & Madagascar

St. George College, Harare, Zimbabwe: After implementing the action project in their school, students partnered up with ‘Red Chair Friends’ from less privileged schools in Zimbabwe. Students, staff and parents in St. George’s College took action by raising money to support their Red Chair friends in other schools. Additionally, the students connected with their peers in less privileged schools to forge relationships and exchange perspectives. See more about this Red Chair experience here 

Asia Pacific

Xavier College, Melbourne, Australia – Here the red chair travelled around the school, first to other classes, then to other year levels, to school assemblies and sports events. Perhaps the most exciting moment of the Red Chair project was when it sat on the altar in front over 2,500 students and staff on St. Ignatius Day. See more about this Red Chair Experience here 

Europe

St. Aloysius College Primary School, Birkirkara, Malta: Here, they began the school year with the presence of a solitary red chair, sitting empty in the classroom floor which was the beginning of raising awareness in the students through various activities throughout the year, and which culminated in the creation of the largest human red chair, consisting of 720 people from the wider school community. See more about this Red Chair experience here 

Latin America

Colégio Anchieta, Porto Alegre, Brazil: After implementing the project with students, created a video of their reflections, each student sitting on a red chair while sharing these reflections. The reflections shared were a powerful testimony to the deep impact the Project had on the students’ awareness of their own and others’ reality in relation to access to education. See more about this Red Chair experience here

North America

Georgetown Preparatory School, Washington DC, USA: One teacher adapted the project creatively by implementing it in their Spanish language class, thereby raising awareness about this important reality of millions of children who are denied the right to education while also learning new vocabulary. See more about this Red Chair experience here

South Asia

St. Xavier’s School Godavari, Nepal: Here the students began by building and painting their own chairs and then decided to bring the project not only to other classes within their own school but to other schools (both Jesuit and non-Jesuit) within their wider community and even shared it on the main square of their town! See more about this Red Chair experience here

Reading through these wonderfully diverse, creative and inspiring experiences of raising awareness in our students and wider school communities on the right to education is a powerful testament to the opportunities we have as a global community not only to educate our students as global citizens but also to grow and learn together as a global network. We invite you to continue implementing this project in your schools and continue sharing with us all, because as a student in St. Aloysius College in Malta pointed out, “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?!’.

For those of you who are not familiar with this powerful project which aims to raise awareness on the millions of children who do not have access to education, we invite you to check out the materials and resources to implement the Red Chair Project in your classroom.

If you have enjoyed reading through these experiences shared by Jesuit schools across the globe and would like to read more you can do so here.

If you have any questions about implementing this project please share them in this Red Chair Project Conversation, and if you would like to share your Global Red Chair experience with the Educate Magis community please email us on info@educatemagis.org.