The original Global Footprints project provided primary schools with ideas and activities which aimed to empower all participants, but particularly the young, to take steps towards a sustainable future.

Working in partnership with their local Development Education Centre (DEC), participating schools had access to a range of exciting and stimulating activities, which addressed issues of global citizenship and sustainable development and provided an opportunity to explore the social, global and ecological impacts of lifestyle choices.

• To provide children with the essential knowledge and skills to challenge and tackle poverty, injustice and environmental destruction both locally and globally and understand the links between the countries of the North and those of the South
• To incorporate the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary for active global citizenship into the school curriculum and particularly through numeracy and literacy activities/initiatives
• To use the concept of the Global Footprint (see below) as a means of developing an understanding of the social, economic and ecological impact of human activity; to explore this impact in the school context
• Through a participatory process involving both the school community and the partnership DEC explore sustainability indicators and methods of measuring footprints: investigate how indicators or footprints might be reduced or improved
• To encourage and enable all those involved in the project, but particularly the young, to become involved in decision making within their schools and local community through such processes as School Councils and Local Agenda 21
• To gain a Southern and European perspective on global citizenship issues through establishing links between DECs in the UK and schools and organisations in the countries of the South and Europe.