Brendan Ozawa de-Silva is an Associate Teaching Professor at Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics. His research and teaching focus on compassion, empathy, and secular ethics, with an emphasis on applying these principles in diverse settings, including K-12 education, higher education, healthcare, and carceral systems.
Brendan has played a key role in the development of programs such as Emory’s K-12 Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning (SEE Learning) program, which integrates contemplative practices with social-emotional development. He is also a founding member of the Association for Higher Education in Prison, working to expand access to quality education for incarcerated individuals. Through his scholarship and programmatic initiatives, Brendan is dedicated to fostering ethical literacy, social justice, and the cultivation of compassion in educational and institutional settings.
Aidan Clifford formerly director of the CDETB Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) has a strong interest in curriculum development as teacher development particularly when mediated through programmes that focus on social justice, democracy, human rights, sustainability, peace & reconciliation, equality, inclusion and intercultural themes. Aidan is the Irish representative on the Council of Europe Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education and the representative on ETINED. Aidan is a member of the Irish Aid EAG, a board member of A Partnership with Africa (APA), the CDU representative on the WorldWise Global Schools Consortium, committee member of Citizenship Education Network (CEN), a member of IDEA and Basic Income Ireland and a founding member of Encountering the Arts Ireland (ETAI).
Dr Gerard McCann is a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at St Mary’s University College, QUB. He is Head of International Programmes with specific responsibility for Erasmus+ and SEDIM. He is Chair of the Research Committee of the Global Learning Programme (NI) and is on the Steering Committee of the Development Studies Association, Ireland (DSAI). Dr McCann is also Chair of the Board of Trustees of Africa House (NI), a new African diaspora charity. He has been a guest lecturer to a number of European universities and is a visiting professor to the Jagellonian University in Krakow and the European University in Rome. He has written extensively on international relations, economic development and deved. Recent books include: From the Local to the Global (2015, co-edited with Stephen McCloskey), Ireland’s Economic History (2011) and Lustration (2016). He is on the editorial board of Policy and Practice.
My initial interest in personal development and cross community work started early in my teaching when I was given a form class of disaffected young people who had been forced to stay at school because of the raising of the school leaving age. We had the freedom to develop a curriculum suited to their needs with an emphasis on social skills, work experience and community service.
The Seven Schools Project grew out of the Schools Cross Community Contact and Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) initiatives and brought together schools on the North Coast to work together to address the growing divisions within NI society and gave young people the opportunity to learn more of one another’s beliefs and cultures.
I worked as an Education Officer with the Education and Library Board to promote EMU and then was seconded to CCEA as part for the review tem of the NI Curriculum Learning for Life and Work area of learning.
My most recent employment has been in teacher education at Ulster University where I have been course director for a PGCE Home Economics course and Personal Development programme which leads to accredited teacher status in association with the PSHE Association UK.
