From TWB website:
Teachers are the largest single group of trained professionals in the world and the key to our children's future. Teacher training is often uneven, protracted, or unsupported. Teachers need our assistance; otherwise, we are left with poverty, lack of development, and a gaping digital, educational, and economic divide. Every major global report considers teacher development an urgent, collective necessity in developed and developing nations. Teachers need to connect to, give, and receive information quickly, and in multiple languages.
If the key to economic development and our young people's future is education, then teachers should have resources, tools, and access to the Internet, as well as each other. Even more, the resources of the community - its natural wisdom, its culture, its connection to the land and to history - must be treasured, acknowledged, and celebrated.
The education divide is not one-sided. Many "developed" countries are bereft and rudderless, yet are surrounded by modern comforts. Many "undeveloped" countries have rich resources they cannot access. All peoples suffer when we are disconnected from each other. Some need technology and infrastructure development; others need consultation and development. All peoples need education as a binding force. Education, in this era, requires global citizenry.
Teachers Without Borders was designed along the model of a circle; we receive as a charity and we give as a trade. The organization IS its collective wisdom; every member represents teachers everywhere. We are therefore able to work in emergencies, as part of national reform efforts, and with relief organizations or charities precisely because we rely on local expertise. That expertise, in turn, is a resource for others. So, the more we give, the more we receive.
We do not claim a one-size fits all model. Our "peer-education" approach ensures a "virtuous cycle" of data exchange among educators worldwide. We work toward the empowerment and enhancement of education efforts already in place, to increase long-term and local support, rather than sporadic, short-lived interventions. Education should not be limited to schools alone, but to wherever a community gathers.
