Chapter 1 – Waterschool Animation Cycle

1.1 What is Animation?

Here below some ideas about how to animate your school, so that it could become a Waterschool.

What does animate mean?

The English dictionary says: Give inspiration, encouragement, or renewed vigour to eiterh something or somebody. Consequently, we suggest to you some simple but logically organized ideas about how to inspire and encourage teachers, students and families to let your school become a Waterschool.

Animation give a strategy to be followed step by step to achieve your basic goal: become a Waterschool!

1.2 The Waterschool Animation Cycle

Waterschool Animation Cycle is the basic way to turn your school in a Waterschool, involving all the interested actors (stakeholders).

It is called a "Cycle" in that it is repeated, each time building on earlier successes, errors, and lessons learned.

It encompasses many interventions (carried out by one or more mobilizer), designed to increase the level of involvement of your community in the decisions that affect the development of your Waterschool, in a logical and progressive order.

1.3 Who does firstly carry out the Animation Cycle?

First of all, the Waterschool Animation Cycle must be carried out by a legitimate, authorized and recognized mobilizer (or mobilizers): normally, teachers or schoolmasters have to ignite the whole process at its very beginning.

The word mobilize has the word mobile in it. That means movement, or action. A mobilizer has not mobilized a group just by organizing it into some sort of structure. It has to engage in some action before it can be said to be mobilized.

Waterschool Animation Cycle could be activated only when:

• the mobilizer(s) are informed and sensitive to Waterschool aims and to the school community characteristics;

• they promote (encourage, advocate for, train in skills necessary for, and support) community participation in control and decision making of all actions affecting this initiative.

1.4 General aspects of Waterschool Animation Cycle

The main steps we are going to examine:

• Are logically linked each other and to the cycle as a whole;
• Are all needed (absence of any one will seriously weaken its impact); and
• Are initiated in the following order, although there may be some overlap and continuation.

Participation of all members of your school community is essential to activate a Waterschool.

Here participation specifically means full community participation in control and decision making.

1.5 Preliminary Analysis

To get full participation from your school, it is important to review Unit 1 in this Module.

After that, you will probably able to individuate people to be addressed by your first proposal to collaborate with you in this project.

Maybe, in this initial phase you are alone to speak, but we could resort to the contents and materials provided by our course to coax colleagues, schoolmasters or students to collaborate with you for a Waterschool.