About Us

International Expressions of Kindness: Mission

The International Expressions of Kindness: Multimedia Showcase provides a vehicle for children worldwide to share their thoughts and feelings about kindness and the many diverse ways it can be expressed. The Showcase gives young people an opportunity to act upon their right of free expression.

Goals

Our goals are realistic, inspirational, ambitious, and motivational.

The Showcase is being offered to children and youth from 3 to 18 and their families to:

  • Encourage children to think critically and reflect about the meaning of kindness.
  • Help children recognize and acknowledge acts of kindness locally/ nationally/internationally.  
  • Encourage children to create, in their own unique voices, media messages about kindness that they would want to share with the world.
  • Create a safe virtual space for children worldwide to express their thoughts and feelings about kindness. 
  • Build a better understanding of children’s perception and expression of kindness.

Organizers

Action for Media Education (AME)

Action for Media Education is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting media literacy as a critical life skill for the 21st century.  Since 1991, AME has been one of the trailblazers in the media literacy movement in the United States. Our board members include university professors, educators, parents and community activists who are dedicated to bringing media literacy education to children everywhere. One of AME’s primary goals is to teach children and youth to become critical and creative thinkers as they develop the skills of expression to communicate in their own unique voices. Using the International EXpressions of Kindness: Multimedia Showcase as a vehicle, we hope to encourage young people around the world to select the medium of their choice to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas on kindness during this historic time of a pandemic. For more information about AME and media literacy, please visit the page Resources for Children and Educators on this site, and the AME website.

NW Center for Excellence in Media Literacy Education

Northwest Center for Excellence in Media Literacy Education is based in the University of Washington’s College of Education in Seattle, Washington. Since the early 1990s, the Center has been a trailblazer in using the lens of media literacy education to address a wide range of health issues affecting young people across the United States. The Center not only conducts research, it also provides training and develops curriculum for educators, health professionals, and paraprofessionals working with young people.

Partners

Child Rights in Action

Child rights in Action (CRIA) is a model that demonstrates how to create the right conditions for the living  experience of child rights. Many individuals and organizations realize the importance of child rights and participation but face certain challenges when it comes to implementation. Our programs and forums bridge this gap which allows organizations to reproduce these conditions in their own contexts. Participation (the right of a child to express views in all matters affecting them) is a general principle of fundamental importance for children as reflected in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).  And by promoting participation children are able to fully exercise their rights to provisions and protection. CRIA started 8 years ago as an approach to create an example of child participation via on-field forums, trainings and varied online programs addressing issues faced by children at a grassroot level providing opportunities to participate in the different aspects of child rights and advocacy.

International Janusz Korczak Association

(IKA) is an international forum founded in Warsaw, Poland, with the goal to provide an open platform for followers of Korczak’s ideas and pedagogy in the world, based on respect of child’s rights. IKA unites over 20 national Korczak Associations in different countries across the globe  (https://www.facebook.com/IKAssociation/). It operates and connects with its members via annual conferences, the largest and most representative one was held in August 2018 in Seattle, WA, organized by Dr. Tatyana Tsyrlina-Spady together with Korczak Association of the United States and in cooperation with Seattle Pacific University. IKA is led by its Board; President, Dr. Marek Michalak (Warsaw, Poland), Vice President, Jerry Nussbaum who is also President of Korczak Association of Canada, Vancouver, BC (http://www.januszkorczak.ca), and Dr. Rosa Valeeva, General Secretary.

EducommunicAfrik

EducommunicAfrik‘s mission is to promote media literacy and media education for young people in Africa via organizing training workshops called “Youth Project”. Focused on social issues, EducommunicAfrik also organizes digital campaigns creating and posting visuals, videos, quizzes, etc., that help recognize timely social problems and deal with them at a digital level. As part of its activities, EducommunicAfrik arranges for conferences, panel discussions, and webinars which allow to emphasize the necessity and importance of media education, and which serve training purposes as well.