UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has named the three winners of this year’s UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): the Camphill Community Trust in Botswana, the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (Brazil) and the city of Hamburg (Germany). Each of the three laureates will receive an award of US $50,000, in a ceremony that will take place at UNESCO Headquarters on 15 November, within the framework of the General Conference of UNESCO.

The winners of this year’s UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development were chosen by an independent international jury from a record number of 115 nominations, submitted by the governments of 63 UNESCO Member States and ten organizations in official partnership with UNESCO. The core selection criteria were the projects’ potential for transformation, their innovative quality and ability to embrace all three dimensions of sustainability: the economy, society and the environment.

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Animation4Water 2019 activities completed!

The core of the project "Animation4Water" is raising of awareness of the Mediterranean youth on the challenge of water vunluerability due to climate change and the opportunities that the 'non-conventional' water resources (NCWR) using the short video animation tools and a story-board exhibition . The exhibition of the story-boards and animations were accompanied with training activities for educators and hands-on activities for the youth (see more below on the events).

The project started in 2017, with the collaboration among:

- The Department of Graphic Design and Visual Communication of the School of Applied Arts and Culture of University of Western Attica (UoWA), and in particular the Animation Course professors Dr. E. Mouri and Dr. S. Siakas, who promoted the water topics for the year 2017; So, the students' projects for the course of Animation were dedicated to showcase the water vunlerability, climate change and NCWRs in Greece, and the Mediterranean, in general. To this end, they made a relavant desk study and introduced to the issue by Prof Scoullos (see below)

- The UNESCO Chair and Network on Sustainable Development Management and Education in the Mediterranean of the University of Athens. Prof Scoullos was a guest lecturer to the University of Western Attica.

- The Energy & Water Agency of Malta, who hosted at the Ghajn National Water Conservation Awareness Centre, the English version of the Exchibition and supported the related awareness raising events,

- GWP-Med, providing advice and expertise,

- MIO-ECSDE/MEdIES being the coordinator of the project.

The Animation4Water Exchibition

The Exhibition that has been produced in two languages, ENG and GR, and consists of:

• 4 posters - 70x100 cm -about the World Water Day and the exhibition.

• 30 student’s posters - 50x70 cm, with the storyboards of the animations (see below).

• 8 appealing and creative video clips (animations) simulating environmental concerns around water and climate change challenges: freshwater over-consumption and shortage, water resources pollution, technology and science opportuniies, NCWRs, etc.

Technical information: The set up of the Exhibition needs a space of about 50 m2, equipped with benches or tables. The animations need a projection machine -projector, projection screen, laptop or PC, with connected speakers.

The Events

All events organized in the context of the 2019 World Water Day themed "Leave no-one behind".More particularly:

GREECE

In May, the exhibition was presented in teachers trainings and in public schools where students and teachers watched the videos, went through the storyboards and participated in hands-on awareness raising activities. Totally, 773 students and 65 teachers participated.

MALTA

The exhibition was hosted at GHAJN Center the National Water Conservation Awareness Centre during the open weekend 24-29 April 2019, where~ 643 visitors took part in guided tours in the Exchibition and were handed the project's bookmarks . See more here:http://medies.net/articles.asp?cID=8&aID=1301

The project received support from the EU LIFE+ through the Operating Grant for NGOs for MIO-ECSDE

For more information contact:

Vassilis PSALLIDAS: info[@]medies.net, psallidas[@]mio-ecsde.org ++30 210 3247 490 (ext. 201)

The guide is intended to help empower museums (small or large and of any kind, anywhere), museum workers, museum networks and their partners to contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs for short).

The SDGs are not just for governments: they are an invitation to all sectors of society, in all places, to collaborate and participate in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. Obviously museums have a key role to play in this.

ACCESS THE GUIDE.

UNESCO - through its Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programme - is a member of the One Planet network formed to implement SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP).

The One Planet network to implement SDG 12  on Responsible Consumption and Production and the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production is launching the Anatomy of Action initiative looking at sustainability in daily life with 3 easy actions in 5 daily life domains:  – food, stuff, move, money and fun) (www.anatomyofaction.org).

The Campaign will be launch on 12 September 2019 (at UNESCO) the digital Take Action Challenge from 15 to 30 September. Each day, diverse and global influencers will post on what they do to live more sustainably based on Anatomy of Action ideas. Every 3 days, a new area will be highlighted and (at least) one influencer will start posting. In the Challenge, influencers, partners and people can connect, engage and encourage more sustainable living – based on what we know will truly make a difference. The campaign will show that small actions, taken collectively, can really impact the planet - and anyone, anywhere can contribute.

More at https://www.anatomyofaction.org/

Call for proposals: Transforming Education Conference for Humanity (TECH), Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, India, 10-12 December 2019

The third edition of Transforming Education Conference for Humanity (TECH) will take place in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, India on 10-12 December and is organized by UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The Conference aims at showcasing the role of digital technologies in enabling a shift from “transmissive pedagogies” to “transformative pedagogies” to create more peaceful and sustainable societies in line with the SDG 4.7. The Conference invites applications from academics, researchers and practitioners from the fields of social and emotional learning, games for learning, education for sustainable development, global citizenship education, data science and artificial intelligence in education.

Proposal submission deadline: 31 August 2019.

To submit proposals, please click here.

To see more details concerning proposal submission, please click here.

To see the Concept Note, please click here.

Contact information:

UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP)

ICSSR Building, First Floor,

35 Ferozshah Road,

New Delhi-110001

Tel: +91-11-23 07 23 56-60

Email: tech2019.mgiep@unesco.org

Website: http://mgiep.unesco.org/tech2019

Plastic is light, cheap and useful. But the impacts of plastic waste on the environment and our health are global and can be drastic. Around 80 % of marine litter is composed of plastic, often affecting marine life and birds.

From 2021 a ban will be in place for single-use plastic cotton bud sticks, cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks, as well as food and beverage containers – including cups – made of expanded polystyrene. These items will all have to be made from more sustainable materials or replaced with reusable alternatives. All products made of oxo-degradable plastics will also be banned.

Read more, watch the short videos, and spread the word on the seductive power of single use plastics (and how to resist it!): https://www.bereadytochange.eu/en/

The recently designated (2017) Biosphere Reserve “Tepilora, Rio Posada and Montalbo”, located in Sardinia Italy fostered a Contest of Ideas among school students to define the BR’s logo. The competition has been organized during the previous school year with two purposes: gathering ideas from the youth on the future logo of the BR and to raise awareness among schoolchildren and their families to the main objectives of the UNESCO MAB Programme.

The winner of the Contest was Giulia Balvis from Siniscola with the work entitled in Sardinian "Riservas da Vita" which was judged the best in terms of originality, local identity, blending between man and nature as well as from an adaptability of use and flexibility features of the logo. Giulia’s work has been recently entrusted to a graphic designer which developed further the logo.

All works collected from local schools of the Biosphere’s area during the Contest of Ideas have been recently published on the fb page of the Biosphere Reserve. The originality and the imagination of the girls and boys living the BR “Tepilora,Rio Posada e Montalbo” are now available here: https://www.facebook.com/tepilorarioposadamontalbo.

The competition was a great success, it involved more than 700 students from 11 schools located in the Biosphere Reserve and it involved students from primary classes up to high schools. This project offered them with a motivation to reflect on what are the precious cultural and natural features of the area they live, which need to be protected and enhanced. All these students are now winners of the Contest.

UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and the UNESCO Beijing Office are pleased to announce the 2nd MAB Youth Forum, to take place from 15 to 18 September 2019 in the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve, China, under the theme ‘Committed to Biodiversity’

The forum will mainly work towards the 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15) which will be held in China in 2020.

The 2019 MYF will have the main purpose of offering youth an opportunity to engage more concretely in the preparation and running of CBD COP 15, elaborate their contribution to its debates and foster their commitment to the realization of the future they want, being actors of change in their territories.

Deadline for registrations: 31 July 2019

More information on the application procedures here: https://www.unescomabyouth.org

Social and emotional learning (SEL) enhances students’ capacity to integrate skills, attitudes, and behaviors to deal effectively and ethically with daily tasks and challenges. There are five core competencies that can be taught in many ways across many settings.

Want to know more about the SEL competences and how to develop them in  your learners?

The CASEL website explains the five SEL competencies in action, through short videos.

It is a highly recommended resource for all educators, both formal and non formal.

The EU CONVINCE Project has just published online the Research Report ‘Challenges and good practices related to promoting citizenship and values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education’. The research was conducted in 2018 and included the online surve, among others, on Åducation Employers and School Heads, with the view to collect their views on challenges and good practices in such topics as civic education, teaching in multicultural learning context, teaching sensitive issues, digital citizenship, and other.

The research aimed to match the challenges regarding these topics with existing good practices. Therefore, the report also contains an extensive compendium of examples and good practices related to the implementation of democratic citizenship and inclusive education in Europe, collected through the online survey.

Together with supportive policy frameworks and stronger cooperation between school community actors, the key conclusions of the report include the following recommendations:

• Support to teachers and school leaders is crucial for them to be able to perform in a diverse education setting, better deal with controversial and sensitive issues and create a positive and safe climate in and beyond the classroom.
• Whole-school approach and democratic school culture are effective approaches in promoting democratic citizenship and inclusive education.
• Developing critical thinking and understanding are essential for children and young people to thrive in a digital world and key in relation to digital citizenship.

The research report is available for download here.