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The programmes at CICD demand out-of-the ordinary teachers. The school’s teachers have a wide range of experiences and knowledge from travelling and working in many different countries. They are a diverse bunch, of different ages and nationalities.
The teachers at CICD have as their biggest passion to create a life changing and high quality programme, teaching and training adults to make a difference in the world. You will find the teachers living at the college and engaged in every aspect of the school and the programme.
You will find them active in their teaching and leadership tasks, performing these, together with the students, with their foundation firmly rooted in the programme, in the Teacher Council as
a collective force and as their part of the institution of the Common Meeting, which governs the school. Thus, you will find your teachers learning as well as teaching, listening as well as speaking, making investigations, digging deeper, taking action and speaking out, forging their singular part in the sum of collective processes of learning and action that make up the journey through the elements of the programme.
The Teacher Council welcomes you. Expect us to throw in our lot with you and your teammates. Expect us to demand much, from you as well as from ourselves. Expect comradeship and straight talk, and doing it over if it was too sloppy the first time around. Expect cooperation. Expect lots of fun and seriousness. Expect politics in the broadest sense of the word. Expect to roll up your sleeves for practical work and theoretical study. We look forward to our coming ventures and adventures together!
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Production is a core activity of humankind. Throughout our lives, we spend most of our time producing something in order to earn a living. Production is the basis for a society to survive, and if it is to thrive and develop, that society must produce a surplus. At the foundation of any productive unit lies its production.
What kind of product shall it produce? Who will pay for it? What is its purpose? What are the politics of it? What values does the product represent? Who shall benefit?
Following that, how shall the productive unit actually earn the money it needs to cover its expenses? And what will it take to earn a surplus, which not only allows for feeding, clothing and housing those who produce, but also allows for expansion and development?
At CICD, the course programmes constitute the main production, but within the frame of these programmes, we are continuously producing a range of different and very interesting products.
Here are some examples:
* Making reports, presentations, radio broadcasts, documentaries, and other products for the Public Arena
* Teaching people of all ages
* Improving buildings
* Growing vegetables
* Cooking delicious and healthy meals
* Fighting with The Poor
* Building muscles, stamina and new brain connections
* Improving health
* Gaining knowledge and insight
* Acquiring wisdom
* Getting new ideas
* Building comradeship
* Earning money through fundraising and creating values through practical work
* Collecting second-hand clothes
As a student at the school, you will – together with the teachers – be involved in carrying out all these productions.
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CICD is a not-for-profit organisation. As a private independent entity, the school raises its own funds. A part of the funds come from tuition fees and grants, and another part comes from the school’s own income generating activities:
* A clothes collection with collection boxes and door-to-door collections in towns and cities around the UK. The clothes collection provides a convenient way for people to get rid of their used clothes and shoes, saving landfi ll space and reducing, through the reuse of clothes, emissions of C02, while also providing a source of funds to support the school’s training programmes.
* A Garden Farm, expanding every season, supplying the school with fresh organic vegetables.
We save money and keep tuition fees low by not having practical staff employed. Instead, we run the school together, students and teachers, from cooking, cleaning, maintenance and food production, to organisation and planning. In this way, everyone learns a variety of different skills by taking on the many practical and organisational tasks involved in running a productive unit.
The teams manage their own economy and budget, keeping track of and taking decisions on what to spend for the programme, materials, food, transport and travel, in addition to the
fixed amount for running the institution.
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The campus at CICD is characterised first and foremost by the programmes that the teachers and students at all times are in the middle of carrying out. The programme and the way you plan within it defines what is taking place during any given day:
The planning, the preparations, carrying it out, the mistakes, the discussions, the obstacles, the personal and collective barriers you overcome; the people you meet; the products you produce; what you learn from it all; the successes and failures; using what you gained to build on in the new period, and looking ahead to what comes next. So the dynamics of the programmes constitute a main artery in the life of the school.
The Teacher Council constitutes another. The teachers represent the continuity of the school and its idea, its Charter and its pedagogy. The principal and teachers have the task of bringing the best experiences forward from one team to the next, and they will also instigate changes and call for turning things upside down when needed. The school’s principal and teachers moreover exchange experiences and ideas and develop programmes in a lively cooperation with other schools around the world that practice the same pedagogy and carry out similar programmes to those described here.
A third artery is the daily running of the school with all its many elements. At CICD, all teachers and students live at the school and run the school together, twenty-four seven, and this fact alone makes for an out-of-the-ordinary campus, as well as an excellent training ground for practical, organisational and comradeship skills and collective living.
When we say that we run the school together, we mean it quite literally.
From handling the economy, doing the administration, enrolling the students for the next team, producing our own food, taking care of guests, to maintaining and beautifying the buildings, planning the next period, cooking and cleaning, and devising the menu plan, we simply do it all together, students and teachers, organising and reorganising ourselves according to how we find it best fitting to the programme and to the things that have to be done.
You will also find many traditions at the school. The best of them have lasting value, such as Building Weekends, Open Sundays and the weekly common action, where we do larger practical tasks such as expanding the Garden Farm, deep-cleaning the school, uniting for an action to inform about the programme and enrol participants for the next team, or maintaining needed areas of the school buildings. On your team, you will be your part of making new traditions, adding to the flavour and bounty of the school life.
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Whatever your fi tness level when you arrive at CICD, you can look forward to improving your health, strength and stamina and getting fit for fight by enjoying sports and exercise of different kinds, individually and with your teammates. The area around Winestead Hall is ideal for run and cycling. We have a football field, a volleyball pitch and basketball court at the school, and these are much used during the summer. In the winter, we use the school’s sports hall with fi tness equipment, and we also make frequent trips to the local sports centre with swimming pool.
Food production
With soaring food costs, one billion people going hungry every day, fast food and junk food causing malnutrition, obesity and health problems, food production based on fossil fuels contributing to global warming and climate change – with all these problems and more, the question of how to produce and supply healthy food for all is a burning issue of our time.
At CICD you will be involved in food production on several levels and from different perspectives. You will study the issues globally and locally, getting the facts and investigating the consequences for ordinary people. What is the cause of the obesity epidemic in the western world, and why is the food we buy in supermarkets unhealthy and deficient in nutrients? What does it mean when giant corporations control food production with profit as their only goal? While working in the school’s garden farm, you will also learn how to plan and start garden farms as an important action when fighting with The Poor in Africa or Latin America, and how to solve obstacles such as getting water for irrigation, making compost from local waste materials, and fighting pests without using harmful poison or expensive fertilisers.
You will study and try out simple, effi cient and sustainable ways of increasing crop yield, so farmers can prevent soil erosion and utilise scarce water supplies on their land. You will get hold of solutions for financing, transporting and distributing finished products, equipping yourself with these tools and others to put at the service of The Poor.
So look forward to getting your hands dirty and your brain busy on multiple fronts when it comes to food production.
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When joining as a participant at CICD, you will also enrol as a distance learner at One World University, Mozambique. Depending on which programme you enrol for, you may earn a single or double A-certificate, or you may earn a Licentiate degree.
One World University, or OWU for short, was started by Development Aid from People to People in Mozambique and the Federation Humana People to People in 1998. In the following years, the school went through a process of recognition in close co-operation with the Pedagogical University of Mozambique.
In 2005, OWU was approved by the Council of Ministers in Mozambique as a private university.
It was accredited to deliver academic courses and degrees from the level of bachelor to PhD with a nationally recognised qualification, and was given its offi cial name ISET – Instituto Superior de Educação e Tecnologia, in short ISET/OWU.
One World University currently has three faculties: the Pedagogical faculty, the faculty of Fighting with The Poor and the faculty of Polyhistory. The university offers courses, either on site at its campus in Changalane or through distance learning. A licentiate degree from OWU corresponds to a Bachelor of Arts degree, and an A-certificate corresponds to 1500 study hours.
CICD has entered into an agreement of co-operation with OWU in Mozambique, allowing its participants to earn a degree from OWU as distance learners while following a course at CICD. When participating in an OWU degree course, you will as part of the programme go through the relevant curriculum and take the required exams from OWU in Mozambique, and you will be assigned a tutor who will be your contact person in all matters concerning your OWU certificate or degree
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At CICD, you can expect to do a lot, learn a lot, and experience a lot. Your studies and work are about life important stuff.
You will be challenged on many fronts, you will be busy and productive, and you will through the programme grow and develop as an individual and as part of the collective comprising your
teammates and teachers.
So we urge you to get the most of it. Do not hold back, but throw yourself into the programme with gusto and take part in planning, constructing and shaping it in every way. Immerse yourself in all the many areas of school life. Enjoy the practical work and become good at it. Learn about and speak out about the pressing and urgent issues facing humankind and our fellow species on this globe. Ponder, investigate, study and discuss – with your teammates and with the many people you meet. Find solutions for how we must act, and try out the solutions. Do things you never thought you could do, like going on investigation, travelling on the cheap, meeting strangers and making friends with them. Find out what the news media does not tell you, and realise how much you can do when you act in unison with others.
In short, we encourage you to grab all the opportunities the programme has to offer and go for it full throttle, getting the very most out of it..