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ParPal Projection -
Working in unique family partnerships for a new approach to education

Families can be truly complicated structures. And they change constantly!

We all experience the tension between the needs of a family and the support given (by the authorities, by kindergarten & school, by peers, by life itself ...) - just think of the disparities between family and working life or between a child’s nature and the demands of the educational system!

Incompatible at times and certainly always a challenge ...

ParentalPal.Org dedicates itself to establishing a wide range of thought processes and putting ideas to the test in order to find new and helpful ways of realizing the wonderful “concept of raising a family”.

Some of these efforts at rethinking and recreating are based on our own projects, we implement School Pal and the ParPal Project directly. They are designed to create win-win situations, we hope that kids and parents benefit as much as we intend to by analysing their feedback, both praise and criticism, and all we can learn through the interaction with them! Please refer to the relevant pages for more detail.
In addition there are intensive preparations for work reaching out to others.
        
Parental Cooperations work closely with many of our ParentalFusion members and they involve external partners - there is a clear commitment to attract public interest and bring change on many levels:

2010 will see the realization of the concept for a collection of stories:

By now we have a great number of creative people in our colourful and diverse crowd of Parental Pals. Creative as individuals and creative in a professional way - many designers, artists, writers, journalists, free thinkers and other innovative spirits welcome the idea of networking with a distinct family focus, very private and yet international. We’re glad to have them !

There is already a wealth of good stories (and interesting personalities) within the community by now, enough to allow for creative thinking towards a multimedia approach! Would it not be tremendous to tell stories of families all over the world, how they multiply their own potential by linking with kindred spirits and how they build their individual bridges across borders and generation gaps? This is a concept that will hopefully have the catalyst impact we believe it has the potential for.

The Illustrious Parental Tales Archive is planned to be a continuously growing collection of video clips - short film portraits of interesting people, their stories and their future plans. It works on these three elements:

family portraits,
showcasing parents and their children, the country and the circumstances they live in

stories of pal2pal relationships, the reasons behind their specific connection and results of their partnership, both short term and in the long run

an idea, a project, a plan - anything that evolves out of the ParentalFusion dialogue and grows into something with potential for a powerful impact. A gradually increasing budget gives financial backing and co-operations with partners in the media will bring it to public attention.

We aim to close the circle here by connecting conclusions and ideas out of the think tank hothouse of ParentalFusion with the input of global family experts and institutions.

All clips will be made available individually for viewing online at ParentalPal.Org (in a set-up very much like TED) and passing them on will be welcome and encouraged. The contents of this archive will also be offered to schools and can be used within the context of geography lessons as well as part of language tuition.
 


This beautiful TED talk by Rick Smolan conveys the power of a story. He tells the unforgettable story of a young Amerasian girl, a fateful photograph, and an adoption saga with a twist:

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