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Mission

Our work is defined by a mission to represent students and bring them closer together across the world.

Networking

The GSF is a platform for student organisations to exchange ideas, practices and tactics. It allows us as student movements and grassroots activists from around the world to build relationships and networks with like minded organizations and natural allies such as teachers and trade unions.

Cooperation

The GSF is a platform for student movements to work together on issues of common concern. It facilitates the engagement of genuine, representative and legitimate student organisations and movements with the institutional framework of the United Nations and UNESCO specifically.

Special attention is being paid to the ongoing discourse on sustainable development, financing of education as well as the democratisation and accountability of governance structures.

Advocacy

The GSF strengthens and amplifies the voice of student organisations and movements on the global level by engaging in advocacy issues and lobby work on behalf of its membership.

With a strong emphasis on formal and informal international decision making spaces, it combats practises of tokenism and cherry picking to ensure fair and legitimate representation of students on the global level. Informed by the first hand experience of its constituency, it provides space for genuine dialogue with the overarching aim to influence policy outcomes.

Capacity Building

The GSF builds the capacity of student organisations and movements where they are weak or nascent. It organises training sessions and exchanges through which we can learn from each other and strengthen our work.

The overarching objective is to establish a culture that ensures the sustainable transfer of knowledge and preservation of organisational memory within student movements, so we can bridge the gaps caused by a high turnover of activists and leaders.

Solidarity

The GSF amplifies the struggles of student organisations and movements around the world, whether campaigns against rising costs for education or violence in our institutions. It draws attention to student movements where they face political repression, discrimination and police brutality.

It enables us, as student activists and leaders, to connect with our counterparts in other countries, lessening our sense of isolation and building solidarity. In this way, it is mutually empowering and acts as a beacon in the darkness for students facing social injustice and rights abuses.

Analysis and Strategy

The GSF provides a space for student organisations and movements for research, analysis and strategy development on contemporary issues and changes in student governance and education systems. The GSF promotes strategies for effective student responses to societal and education issues.