Voices of the World was created by Sharon Tonner-Saunders, a lecturer in education at the University of Dundee, Scotland.  She created the project whilst she was a primary school teacher in 2006 at The High School of Dundee. During this time, she managed and organised many intercultural projects with children in her school and schools around the world.  Her intercultural work was recognised by the British Council, who invited her to be an eTwinning Ambassador and a British Council Ambassador.  In 2007, Voices of the World won the British Council's eTwinning prize for the best intercultural project alongside being awarded the British Council and European Council's eTwinning Quality Label.  Sharon now works with student primary and secondary teachers where she shares her passion for intercultural work with her students.  In 2018 she created a new intercultural project called Hands of the World, which uses music and Makaton signing.  She created this project to break down linguistic barriers and unite learners of all ages together.  Hands of the World won the British Council's best eTwinning intercultural project in 2019 and 2020 alongside being awarded Quality Labels in the UK and Europe.  Sharon's intercultural work is recognised and appreciated by many around the world, through the project's videos, her publications and her keynote speeches, presentations and workshops that she is invited to present around the world.

VOTW has a clear aim to create a fully inclusive learning environment where pupils around the world can work collaboratively to develop an understanding and appreciation of identities, cultures and languages where inclusion, diversity and linguistic identities are at the heart of VOTW.

The project has clear goals that are:

• Communication: using music combined with media or signs (British Makaton) to preserve linguistic identities and enable learners to communicate with one another.

• Language Learning: learn new languages from many countries alongside British Makaton sign language.

• Collaboration (co-operative and collaborative learning): enabling pupils to work together across time and space and within their own space through different challenges and roles within the project..

• Student Voice: enabling pupils to let their voices be heard, whether this be their linguistic voice that uses their own language  or their participatory voice that allows them to make decisions and contribute to decision making in the project.

• Problem Solving: work together across time and space to come up with solutions to problems.

• Social Justice: to develop an awareness, understanding and appreciation of their own identity and culture as well as the identities and cultures of others.

• Intercultural Learning: learn about people, place, diversity, inclusion and acceptance.

• Digital Literacy: to develop pupil and teachers' digital competencies.

Curricular integration is rich and diverse in this project due to the age range spanning from 3 years to 18+ with many different levels of abilities and cultural differences alongside different curriculums from each country and pedagogical approaches used.  The presentation provides information about:

•  how the project integrates into different countries' curriculums;

•  the rich interdisciplinary learning within the project;

•  the pedagogical approaches used throughout the project.

Collaboration between partner schools permeates all aspects of the VOTW project.  The following presentation provides an insight into the rich collaborative learning opportunities the project offers learners and teachers.

The use of technology was a key aspect of the project to enable learning across time and space, communication and collabration alongside creating and sharing.  The following presentation provides an insight into the Digital technology that was used throughout the project.

All staff and pupils who participated in the HOTW project were invited to take part in an evaluation looking at each part of the project and also to give their ideas and pupil voice on what activities they would like to improve the project.

The results and impact of the project were: