Red Internacional de Educación para el Desarrollo y Educación Popular (RIEDEP)

Who are we?

Polygone is an international network of Development Education and Popular Education. It was created to discuss the role education should play, as a transformational practice, in different societies of the North and the South. There are currently 39 organisations from Africa, America, Asia and Europe taking part in the network. All of them promote education for social change. Our aim is to establish an Educational Forum that is open to organisations from around the world that share this vision.

How was the network formed?

In 1996, ITECO (Belgium) contacted four European organisations and proposed the creation of a network of development education trainers: Étudiants et Développement (France), CIDAC (Portugal), CIP (Spain) and HEGOA (Basque Country. Spain). All four groups had a great deal of experience in the field of education. The French organisation later left the network due to internal problems.

Together, these groups carried out research and developed courses to train trainers. In 1999, they formulated the idea of an "International Network of Development Education and Popular Education" in order to share concerns and achievements with organisations from the South. They wanted to break with the logic of active donors and passive recipients, which dominates the world of co-operation, and create a relationship of equals. The goal was to initiate contact, debates and exchanges between organisations from the South and the North on even terms, with neither group having primacy over the other. From the beginning of 2001 until March 2003, HEGOA was responsible for the co-ordination of the POLYGONE Network. This group created the web page, organised the first network Meeting in November 2002 and co-ordinated the writing and publication of "Mosaic of Education: Escaping the Labyrinth", which was distributed in March 2003.

Depuis les débuts de 2001 jusqu'en mars 2003, HEGOA s'est responsabilisé de la coordination du réseau POLYGONE, mettant en marche cette page web, organisant la première Rencontre du réseau en novembre 2002 et coordonnant l'élaboration de la publication "Mosaïque éducative pour sortir du labyrinthe" distribuée en mars 2003.

How does the POLYGONE Network operate?

The organisations involved in the international Network of development education and popular education are inter-connected through various means:

• A virtual Forum: through a web page in four languages -Spanish, French, Portuguese and English- as well as various email lists. This is the main instrument for getting to know each other, and it is a forum for debate and the interchange of ideas and experiences. The web page has a database, with files contributed by all the groups of the Network. These describe the participant organisations , along with their contexts, educational experiences, theoretical contributions and local networks. In the documents section, you can access over 100 educational documents in the four working languages of the Network.
• A framework of Local Networks : Each of the organisations commits to setting up an educational network of at least 3 associations in their local or national context. This creates an exponential effect in the spreading of experiences and theoretical documents, as well as in the contributions made to network discussions. The organisations participating in these local networks also have the possibility of contributing their documents and files to the web database.
• A Network Meeting : taking place in the Basque Country (Spain) in November 2002, with the participation of representatives from all the organisations of the POLYGONE Network.
• A publication: "Mosaic of Education: Escaping the Labyrinth" , created from contributions of all the Network organisations. This document is meant to be an instrument for debate on the role of education in social change within different contexts.
• A Co-ordination Committee: made up of 8 organisations from the four regions of the Network: BIMAESW , CIDAC, CIP, CITI-HABITAT, ETAPAS, HEGOA, ITECO and PRODESSA. Beginning in April 2003, these eight organisations are responsible for the co-ordination and functioning of the network.