News
"A very special recognition and inspiration" - new post on the ESD Prize Blog from Brazil
A new post has just been published on the ESD Prize Blog by the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (Brazil), one of the winners of the UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in 2019. It General Director Professor Virgilio Viana reflects on the prize-winning, its reception back in Brazil and future plans:
"It was a very special moment to receive the prize from the Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay in Paris. The ceremony was quite impressive, not only to me, but also to our organization, the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS). This was a very special recognition, one of the most relevant of our history, as a true milestone. FAS is the first Brazilian and South- American organization to receive this prize.
The prize was received in Brazil as a very special recognition to our work on education for sustainable development. The prize was widely communicated through social media and mainstream press. Our relationship with our partners got stronger, including funding agencies and technical partners. Besides the prize ceremony in Paris, on November 15th, we also had a prize ceremony in the Amazon, on November 21st, which was held at the city’s landmark, the Manaus Opera House. The idea was to share with our staff, community leaders, partners and society in general. We had the presence of Mr. Vicente Nogueira, Secretary Education of Amazonas, Mr. Fabio Soares Eon, representing UNESCO through a video message, the Adjunct Consul of Japan in Manaus, Mr. Iwato Takahiro, in addition to all our staff and our main partners.
We are positive that UNESCO can become a very relevant partner to FAS. Our aim is to make this relationship stronger from 2020 onwards. The prize gave our education program a very high profile, a wider recognition within the education community and opened new opportunities for strengthening existing partnerships and bringing new partners for our challenge of promoting sustainable development of the Amazon.
We were inspired by the UNESCO prize to create a new innovative program on ESD, to be focused on youth from communities in the middle of Amazon. The project that is going to have a new curriculum focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will be a one-year course, launched in February, and with the classes scheduled to begin in March 2020. This will provide education for leaders of Amazon communities to become leaders of sustainable development programs at the community level. The program will include practical training as well as basic theoretical understanding of the main challenges for sustainable development in the Amazon. This initiative is the first of its kind aimed at education and sustainable development at the technical level in the region."
