The idea for this website emerged from the course ‘Global Policies and Local Challenges: Perspectives from the South’, taught by Dr Vera G. Centeno and offered by the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University, financed and facilitated by UniPID Virtual Studies. The course aims to engage critically with global education agendas, local contexts and the knowledge produced in and from the Global South. It was conceived to foster dialogue, bring together diverse voices, encourage cross-regional reflections and support a deeper understanding of the global–local nexus. As the course expanded, it became clear that the lectures, debates, and guest contributions contained valuable insights that should reach wider audiences beyond the classroom.
Building on these goals, BRIDGED was jointly developed by Vera G. Centeno, Luiz Alonso de Andrade, and Ligia Ribeiro dos Anjos, who collaborated to design a space that is both informative and open to future growth. Through this collective effort, the website extends the course’s core purpose: it becomes a shared initiative to promote accessible, critical, and context-sensitive discussions about social policy, education, and development.