- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 8 2005 17.02 GMT
A global citizenship programme piloted in UK schools last year is being expanded to offer resources to teachers around the world.
The J8 programme, which last year gave young people in 5,500 UK schools the chance to debate the issues being discussed at the G8 summit and to present their a communiqué of ideas on reducing poverty and climate change to world leaders, will now be available to teachers from all the G8 group of countries.
The move is in preparation of next year's G8 summit in St Petersburg, Russia.
The improved resource, aimed at 13 to 16-year-olds, will offer up-to-date online teaching materials, translated into six core languages, including lesson plans, detailed country information, fact sheets and student exercises.
The topics covered will include health, poverty, trade and employment and sustainable development, and will have an added focus on the areas prioritised for next year's summit by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
There will also be discussion forums and a website area for students to submit their ideas on how world leaders should tackle global issues. From these postings, a communiqué outlining the priorities of young people will be written for each country.
Students may also get the chance to visit St Petersburg next year as part of a national delegation of young people to debate the issues on the G8 agenda.
In July this year, 10 school groups from the UK joined with young delegates from each of the other G8 countries (France, Germany, the US, Canada, Japan, Italy and Russia) in Edinburgh for this year's J8 summit. The students debated, lobbied and presented the eight key points they believe world leaders should address to tackle key international problems. These ranged from training plans for African healthcare workers to microfinance strategies.
Emma, 15, from Newcastle, who attended this year's summit in Gleneagles, said: "Young people do care about these things, and they have ideas about how to solve them. Finally to be given the chance to tell world leaders what those solutions are, it's amazing."
John Crompton, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International Foundation, which developed J8, added: "If we can take the passion and enthusiasm of young people unencumbered by the scepticism of adulthood and combine it with access to up-to-date and globally relevant education resources, we will develop the kind of young people we want to be running the world in years to come.
"This combination of people, ideas and capital is why we created J8 - to sit alongside the G8 and demonstrate the potential for good there is in empowering young people in global processes."
The teachers' resources will be available in the core G8 languages this month.
