Education

Education can open doors to the future that would otherwise be firmly locked.

Our aim

The 4Watoto Foundation wants to create value through education in the area of; unity, awareness, social impact and knowledge transfer. We focus on the Netherlands and DR Congo.

Our projects:

Education, You may be thinking: that's a broad concept. What does 4Watoto value when it comes to education?

Create understanding

Learning is a fundamental process of education, but learning is not always related to education.

Indeed, learning is one of the fundamental processes on which education is based. Learn something. But don't just learn anything. You can learn a trick. You can learn to make fire. You can learn all of these things, but that does not mean that you have learned them through education.

Education is essentially about understanding, not just about knowledge or skills. Understanding arises from a contemplative attitude towards a process, in order to be able to ask questions about how the process works. Understanding originated in this contemplative space where openness and honesty are central.

Education for all people

The 4Watoto Foundation wants to make education available to everyone. Education is something that does not belong to any particular group, class or religion. Education and knowledge are universal and should not be distinguished. Whether that takes place directly or indirectly. Education therefore stands for knowledge, and more can be linked to this. Consider, for example, independence, self-reliance and self-reflection.

By using education as a tool, certain systematic, social problems can be tackled. Instead of temporary, dependent solutions, through education you are dealing with a permanent, independent approach. It is therefore an investment, which can take a longer time. The moment these change processes have been set in motion, we can speak of a snowball effect. The acquired knowledge is passed on to the next group of youth and young adults. After which they do that again. This makes a community independent.

According to the Universal Rights of the Child, every child has the right to education. Whatever your background, story or situation is. And 4Watoto fully agrees with this.

Consciousness

Education and knowledge means broadening consciousness. As mentioned above, we are talking about themes such as self-reflection, independence and self-knowledge. But a greater awareness of the surrounding world is also extremely valuable. The more you learn about what is outside of you, the more you actually learn about yourself.

Connection and equality

Something that is very much in the foreground, and is fundamentally important to the 4Watoto foundation, is the creation of a greater awareness about different themes. One of these is understanding the world of another. Although we may be very different from each other, and because of this may end up in a polarisation, we can also recognise these differences and celebrate them.

We believe that once this step has been taken, we can focus together on further cooperation in which more can be grown closer together. This growth can ensure a lot of knowledge transfer. So this has a lot to do with establishing connections between different groups of people. And perhaps these different groups of people are not that different at all. After all, we are all human, with the same palette of emotions and feelings, regardless of the external circumstances.

Raising this awareness also ensures that people start to look at each other with different eyes. This mutual understanding, cooperation and transfer of knowledge will influence the degree of equality we feel for another.

We use education to further promote these developments. Something that is universal, as no one stops learning and everyone learns in and about life from the very first step.

Let's unite!