CCIVS campaign on education for sustainable development (ESD) 2007 - 2008
THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Provide examples and ideas for a tool kit
Select a project and receive the UN label of the decade
Reflect during the project
Create a piece of art (click on the picture to check examples)
Create stronger links to UNESCO National Commissions
Exhibit at UNESCO HQ in Paris
Discuss during the final seminar in 2008

WHAT is the campaign about?

1. A tool kit has been produced, which serves as a basic tool to trigger discussions in the projects later on. The kit focuses on the following aspects:

- Introduction / presentation of ESD and the CCIVS campaign
- Games, statements, activities, exercises to stimulate discussion on the topic
- Detailed instructions to run the art activity during a workcamp
- Links to other web based resources on ESD
- Details of how to join the campaign and benefits to organisations

Click here for the downloadable version of the kit.

Click here for the downloadable short presentation of the campaign.

Please send us any examples, exercises and ideas of how to introduce the theme of sustainable development during a voluntary service project as soon as possible and at the latest by the end of March 2007.

2. 20 to 30 Organisations all over the world will be selected to participate in the campaign by May 2007. A brief profile of the organisations and the chosen projects will be posted on the CCIVS website. The projects will receive the official UN logo of the Decade for education for sustainable development and UNESCO will help us to attract media attention in order for the projects to be more widely promoted. Links will be established with the National UNESCO Commissions in the countries where the project takes place.

Send us an email with a short description and the dates of the project during which you intend to introduce the issue of ESD. The project can be of an environmental or any other nature. You must engage yourselves to use the toolkit during the project and create a piece of art (see below).

3. The organisations will integrate a specific focus on the campaign in their projects taking place between June and September 2007. After an interactive debate, exercises and games based on the suggestions developed in the kit, they will create a piece of art produced from the waste or other used products available in and around their project sites. Depending on the type of art work resulting from this collective effort you will either send your creation to CCIVS in Paris or send pictures of it. The pictures will immediately be posted in a virtual gallery on the CCIVS website.

4. The suggestions, ideas and pictures of the projects will be integrated into the Kit by October 2007. The kit will serve as a tool for future projects wishing to introduce the notion of ESD into their projects.

5. In late January 2008 a seminar will take place in Paris inviting youth and voluntary service organisations to send participants, with a priority given to those who were actively involved in the campaign during the summer 2007. The seminar will receive European funding and will be supported by UNESCO in terms of access to logistics and meeting rooms. A gallery with the pictures and the art work, which was sent in during the campaign will be set up and hopefully exposed at UNESCO HQ.

More information on ESD and CCIVS work:

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=27234&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://www.unesco.org/ccivs/New-SiteCCSVI/CcivsOther/esd/esd-presentation.htm

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: BACKGROUND OF THE CCIVS CAMPAIGN

Why a campaign on ESD?

Sustainable development has become a fashionable notion in the mouth of many policy and decision makers.The notion covers a wide range of issues related to all spheres of life. The concept was popularised after the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. For the first time the global public was alerted that the ecological resources of planet earth were limited and its health was threatened by the pollution generated by the world economy and population. The summit stressed that the kind of growth industrialised nations are pursuing and developing nations are aiming at is suicidal for the planet in terms of long term consequences. "Sustainability" was put forward as a criteria able to indicate the appropriateness of a measure in terms of its long term consequences: a measure or behaviour is sustainable if it takes into consideration the long term effects and risks it generates and respects the needs of future generations. It is based on the principle that the earth does not belong to any given generation but has to be "passed on" from one generation to the next. No generation has the right to damage the future life chances of next generations, through a behaviour using all the resources available today, and without preparing the ground for the needs of their children and the children of their children.

UNESCO definition of ESD:
Education for sustainable development is about learning to:
- respect, value and preserve the achievements of the past;
- appreciate the wonders and the peoples of the Earth;
- live in a world where all people have sufficient food for a healthy and productive life;
- assess, care for and restore the state of our Planet;
- create and enjoy a better, safer, more just world;
- be caring citizens who exercise their rights and responsibilities locally, nationally and globally.

Over the years the situation of the planet has worsened and even though some progress was reached such as the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by many states, the global awareness of the urgency of the issue has not progressed enough to change behaviours (The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change strengthens the international response to climate change. Adopted by consensus at the third session of the Conference of the Parties (COP3) in December 1997, it contains legally binding emissions targets for Annex I (developed) countries for the post-2000 period. Please refer to http://unfccc.int/2860.php for more details).

In December 2002 it was decided to designate a Decade on Education for sustainable development in order to raise the public awareness of the issue. UNESCO was designated lead agency for the promotion of the decade. Even though the main polluters are commercial and industrial, the accumulated consequences of the individual behaviour in terms of inefficient energy consumption have an equally disastrous effect on the globe. It is moreover necessary to change the attitudes and expectations of the individuals as consumers in order for them to put pressure on industry, global trade and agriculture. Sustainable behaviour and sustainable consumption will be one key to change the policies of the biggest global polluters.

The concept of sustainability goes far beyond ecological issues. Sustainability requires us to think about the long term consequences of all measures we initiate: it requires us to think about the ultimate consequences of our behaviour and the damage it does not only to future generations but also to people living and breathing in other parts of the world. It requires us to think in holistic and global terms beyond the criteria of the immediate satisfaction of our needs here and today. It requires people to change their outlook on life, taking into account complex consequences of their deeds and acting as part of a global community, where all human beings have the same right to develop themselves and enjoy the same basic rights. The discussion on sustainability is often seen as a discussion of the industrialised countries, which have make up for their past and current "sins". However the global perspective obliges us to look at the consequences of all actors all over the world especially taking into consideration the rapid development of countries like India and China, which are engaged in the race to "catch up with" (or overtake) the industrialised nations. The question is how to reconcile the absolute need to stop the suicidal development of the global population and to recognise the legitimate will of those nations to develop the same standard of life as the "old" industrialise nations.

Education for sustainable development aims at increasing the knowledge about the concept of sustainability all over the world. The challenge is to widen people's perspectives in order for them to take the global consequences of their actions into consideration.

Aims and objectives of the campaign

CCIVS touches upon hundreds of thousands of volunteers engaged in projects all over the world. The very concept of international voluntary service is based on an idea of global solidarity. It is therefore only consequent to engage in a campaign aiming at the promotion of sustainable development joining efforts with the international community.

Through the campaign CCIVS aims at broadening the perspectives of the people touched by the projects its members implement. CCIVS promotes a holistic vision of the world based on the universality of human rights, a sense of global solidarity and the fight for equality and dignity of all people in the world.

The campaign on ESD is a logical consequence of other strands of CCIVS' action over the last years namely the campaign for a culture of Peace (2001), the creation of a Freshwater Kit (2003), the creation of a Kit on Globalisation (2005), the production of a module on Cultural Diversity (2006/2007) and an ongoing reflection on Intercultural Dialogue, Conflict and Communication.

Specific objectives

* To strengthen the sense of the global voluntary service movement through a common action;
* Think "glocally": link the level of concrete action on the ground with a reflection on the concept and its global consequences;
* Create a bridge between the expert discourse and the concrete action on the ground in understandable and meaningful terms;
* Fertilise the global debate on ESD through the reflections, ideas and recommendations developed by the people touched by the campaign.