N For Nurture: Raising A Global Citizen

How do you raise a Global Citizen? As a multicultural family living in the heart of the French countryside we are well aware that the idea of being a Global Citizen is one that we will have to nurture within our children. Whilst living in London we were surrounded by a rich variety of different cultures, and we encountered these cultural influences such as people, food, and music, on a daily basis. Where we now are in rural France we have to dig a little deeper and look a little harder to find the same cultural influences...but they are there...and we know the importance of highlighting them to our two young boys.

As we approach the fruitfulness of Summer our garden is flourishing with fruit, vegetables, and flowers that we planted earlier in the year. I believe nurturing the idea of global citizenship within our children is similiar to that of nurturing a plant. We plant seeds, water them, weed around them, support them, and soon will start to reap the rewards of the harvest. Children are often open to all sorts of thoughts and ideas. As their young minds form their own views about the world around them, with a little guidence you can help them discover what it is to be part of a wider community.

As with growing, the idea of being a Global Citizen can be planted, subtly, without the child even realising. You can develop and support the idea in one of the many ways already shown in this series, with music, travel, games, with family and friends, including the wider community around you. We're pretty new to growing in our garden, so we look to what is around us to support of journey. I may not always have the right answers for the inquisitive minds of my boys, but I have in mind what sources there are around us to help. You may not always agree with what you find and have to 'weed out' the good from the bad, but in doing so you will find you strengthen what has already been nurtured within.

Are you raising a Global Citizen? We'd love to hear your nurturing ways! This post was written as part of Creative World of Varya's 'A-Z of Raising Global Citizens' series. Do take the time to click below and have a read of some other blogger's views of how to raise a Global Citizen!

In these Series 24 bloggers of Multicultural Kid Blogs Community got together to share ideas and tips on Raising Global Citizens. Follow us from June 1st to June 26th as we share a letter of the alphabet and an idea associated with it over at Raising Global Citizen Series page!

Creative World of Varya = Bilingual Avenue = The European Mama = Melibelle in = Smart Tinker = Good To Be Mom = Marie's Pastiche = Third Culture Mama = Tiny Tapping Toes = All Done Monkey = Russian Step By Step = Multilingual Parenting = In The Playroom = Rue Du Belvedere = Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes = La Cité des Vents = Faith Seeker Kids = World Languages = The Piri-Piri Lexicon = Healthy Child, Global Mind = Mama Smiles = The Art Curator for Kids = Words n Needles = Multicultural Kitchen = Crazy Little Family Adventures

2

Crafting For Water Aid

When I first moved to France I was on the lookout for crafting groups or associations to join and I came across the 'Le Bouton Rouge' based here in South West France. As well as organising a yearly market for creatives wishing to sell their makes, they also organise charity art projects which this year I chose to take part in. 'Drop by Drop' is a project where participants were asked to create a small work of art based around the theme of water. This could be anything from rain, fish, boats or umbrellas. Any materials or techniques could be used but the finished piece had to measure 12x12cms. The pieces will soon be put on sale in an exhibition, made into cards, and all the money raised will be donated to Water Aid.

Above is what I chose to make. I love working with the bright colours of felt. A striking piece can be produced with simply a little cutting, sticking, and in this case a little sewing of buttons. I can't wait to see all the finished pieces together in an exhibition and to buy my own work as a card. I hope my work sells as it will be good to know that all the money raised will go to a good cause.

What do you think? Have you ever crafted for a charity project? What did you make?

0

A Bug Hotel For The Garden

While we were on our Alphabet Adventure camping trip, on the way home we stopped off at the Dunes du Pilat where we stumbled upon the biggest bug hotel we had ever seen! It was pretty impressive and it got me thinking about adding one to our garden. We have been doing up our small but perfectly formed garden which is a minutes walk away from our house. The veg patch is growing nicely, the BBQ is built, the chickens are happy, and the lavendar is slowly but surely coming back to life. We have been painting stones for our 'mini world' which will soon be cemented in place, and just next door to where it will be we now have our very own bug hotel.

Daddy has been rebuilding what we are now calling the 'summer kitchen' (sounds a lot more glamourous than it really is) a covered area in our garden which houses our newly built-by-daddy BBQ and where we can take shelter from the hot summer sun. He decked the inside and there was a lot of decking left over, so drill in hand Andrew has also built a herb and strawberry box, seating for the inside of the summer kitchen, and now a bug house. The boys filled it with bamboo sticks left over from propping up the veg, unused tiles from the roof, stones from out of the veg patch and hay from the chickens. They used the pine cones we brought back from the beach and a small fraction of their stick collection that grows daily.

It will be interesting to see what insects do decide to taking up lodgings in the bug hotel. There is already evidence of slug or snail trails (which better watch out because if found they tend to get thrown into the chicken coop!) We'll let you know what we find.

Do you have a bug house in your garden? If you do feel free to post pictures over on our Facebook page and let us know what insects you find.

5