#TweetADream Our Future World

#TweetADream #Our Future World June 1st 2015

As @GrundlerArt and @ArtGuy76 we spend a lot of time on twitter sharing and learning about art and education. There are times when you run across the most brilliant ideas. Late one night last week we saw the hashtag #TweetADream and it had a terrific YouTube video attached https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgSfMuEcXlM I was hooked! This is such a happy and wonderful way to end the school year. We had to find out more, so Laura did a little digging on twitter and found @KStawinska co-founder of @_ourfutureworld. Her profile said -What if every child was inspired to seek greatness? #TweetADream. Immediately we did two things, first we created an image with info about #TweetADream to tweet out like crazy and then we reached out to Karolina Stawinska to interview for this blog. She has been gracious enough to write and respond so quickly!

• I saw that you had co-founders who are they, what do all of you do and where are you all located?

I co-founded Our Future World with two friends of mine, Florian Rutsch and Michiel Cambron. Florian is from Germany and recently graduated with a Master's Degree in Social Entrepreneurship. Michiel is from Belgium and is a consultant at Deloitte.

• Where did this most amazing idea of sharing children’s dreams for the future come from?

The initial and still main motivation of calling #TweetaDream into life comes from understanding the importance of actively exploring the possibilities of one’s future and believing in one’s ability to attain them in order to discover one’s passions, talents and full potential. At the same time, we saw that most children and youth are rarely given the space or inspiration to actively explore and ultimately shape their future with courage, focus and determination. Few educational institutions provide it while teachers and young leaders can play a key role.

Without the space and inspiration, many remain far short of their full potential with negative implications for their own well-being as well as for the many pressing challenges we all face today which require empowered, driven individuals in order to be solved. Our shared future depends on the aspirations of the next generation; we need them to believe in themselves so they can actively shape their future as well as that of a better world.

• What is the end goal of #TweetADream?

In the long term, we hope the #TweetaDream campaign and Our Future World projects will contribute to the next generation living fulfilled and at its full potential, making a difference in their own and other people’s lives. Eventually, we wish to see today’s dreams become tomorrow’s world. We are also going to launch a platform which connects teachers around the world to allow them to share best practices on fueling the dreams of the next generation.

• Is it a one day mission or something that you plan on developing into something more?

Our focus is on June 1st 2015, the big day of our #TweetaDream campaign, but we have a number of plans and ideas for follow up projects. These revolve around our central goals of inspiring, amplifying and connecting the dreams for the future of the next generation. Among others, we want to make sure their dreams are heard by our leaders who are already now shaping the future they will live in.

• @ArtGuy76 and several of our teacher friends and #pln from #K12ArtChat plan to participate in #TweetADream with their students do you have any suggestions for them?

Make sure the students are given enough space to let their own imagination and preferences determine their dreams and goals, so they are most likely to take full ownership of them. Also, keep being awesome and an inspiration to your students!

• If you could share something with the world about #TweetADream what would it be and why?

Dare to dream big, believe in yourself and follow your dreams. You might very well grow beyond what you and others thought you could be.

Too many people lose their dreams, stop believing in themselves or never even try as they grow up. It turns out that more often than not we ourselves are our greatest barrier to fulfilling our own dreams. As Henry Ford would say: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you're right.”

A big thank you to Karolina Stawinska for taking the time to work on this interview with us and her co-founders Florian Rutsch and Michiel Cambron and the entire @_ourfutureworld team for their vision! #TweetADream is a truly wonderful mission that supports the future readiness of our students. Here is the link to http://www.ourfuture.world/.

In art education we often talk about “big ideas,” if you’ve been following our recent tweets we’ve been sharing about an amazing collaborative art project in Canada created by http://www.pembinatrails.ca/Features/humanrights/index.html called the “The Pembina Trails Human Rights Project.” We are always thinking about connections; both #TweetADream and the #Rights4Kids https://www.creatubbles.com/rights4kids projects center on the idea that kids have rights and must believe in their dreams. Just think of the possibilities.

Thank you for inspiring the dreams of children.

Wishing you creative experiences,

Matt & Laura Grundler

(Team Grundler)