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Shared education: "start thinking big when you're little!"
Education is an issue of global relevance and full of ambitions and dreams. Yet hardly anyone expects the availabilty of additional capital to ensure a "better and more" in public education systems, in consequence more and more people resort to human resource. And they find that there are ways to have the cake and eat it:
"The world is buzzing with bright and interested kids, keen to explore and to make their contribution. They want access to multi-lingual education and to international experience. What usually gets in their way is the need for better connections, better information, more courage and ideally another kind of family budget. We offer them an infrastructure that takes away these hurdles and gets young talents on their way successfully !" says Alan Ashton, Parental Pal partner in Sydney, Australia. "Our business is to bring kindred spirits together who want to pool their resources, exchange their ideas and build partnerships across borders and cultural differences."
ParentalPal.Org, an international not-only-for-profit network, specializes in win-win partnerships between families. Similarities like the age group and ambitions of the children, the parents' profession and family interests matter as much as language, infrastructure, geographical and cultural attributes. A good match means new perspectives and synergies: "Find what you need for your kids and exchange it for what you're happy to share".
Shared Education is a key element of the Parental Pal way of life, it works on the principles of student exchange, an established way of improving language skills and taking first steps into the real school of life. Classic student exchange however, is usually organized by a third party like an agency and not a direct trade off between two young sides, which was a practical approach in pre-internet days. Today the web creates reversed conditions which Parental Pals utilize for a finely tuned service, characterized by three strongholds:
Family Parental Pals are "intensive family people": parents and kids want to develop together and learn from each other with an emphasis on good and open communication. Enjoying a life-long-learning process hand-in-hand with their children's curriculum is their aim, they want to keep in touch with each other's knowledge, values and perspectives. The Parental Pal idea of international exchange is a family exchange.
English English is ParentalPal.Org's official working language, it is the world's second language - second only to "everyone's mother tongue". A good command of the English language is no longer a bonus but a must, in and outside of academic environments. The opportunity to exercise their language skills is warmly welcomed by parents and kids, the benefits go well beyond their contacts to or within the native English speaking world - English enables Russians to speak to Brazilians and Japanese to Italians, it connects all people alike.
Internationality Global thinking means potential for family cooperations to create opportunities. Parental Pal families design their individual concepts of international education, they are convinced that learning and living abroad does a lot to widen horizons, shape personalities and open minds. For them shared education means sharing knowledge, cultural understanding and day-to-day participation, it means being accepted and mentored like an own child by people who care and who trust that their child receives equally loving care and consideration. Lisa at the Austrian headquarters explains: "Parental Pals' Shared Education takes the heartache out of ambitious pursuits: exchange now has more depth and power and it leaves parents neither worried nor broke!"
About the way it works: ParentalPal.Org as the operating platform provides a wealth of ideas, information and support; interested parents apply for membership and pay a fee to use the service. This turns them into "Parental Pals", characterized not only by their passion for global orientation and fit-for-the-future education but also by a binding code of conduct with a commitment to helpfulness, tolerance and fair play.
................It is an ecosystem of interaction between two families.
................Kids trade places and swap families.
................Parents actively communicate and participate.
This is what builds trust and reliance: Mutuality of interest and identical parental concerns.
The system relies on honesty, good will and fair play. "Slow networking" encourages families to build up relationships gradually for both generations, allowing for dialogue parallel and across. Members reveal personal information on an individual basis only. Once two families find a consensus they provide each other with the kind of help and advice they would expect from well liked relatives or old friends; they offer support and hospitality in mutual exchange to the advantage of both sides. Parental Pal relationships are intended to last for many years, possibly lifetimes and are guided by the motto "Globalization holds many opportunities. Teamwork between families makes them accessible."
For Case Studies of Parental Pal cooperations please click here!
At your service for questions, further information, wishes and welcome suggestions - please click here:
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