The Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development was invited to participate in the Latin America and Caribbean Workshop on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and cities, organized by the Global Action Programme on ESD, which took place on 26-28 April 2017 in Villa María, Argentina.
This workshop was part of a series of regional workshops that have been taking place in all regions of the world, with the aim to sensitize about the integration of ESD at the local level, supporting the implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The occasion helped participants to learn about different initiatives that municipalities and different institutions associated with local governments are doing to put in practice education for sustainability.
The Earth Charter Center supported UNESCO in the identification of several participants, and during the event, Alicia Jimenez represented the Earth Charter and had different roles, such as moderating, speaking and facilitating several sessions.
In parallel, the Regional Workshop on Learning Cities was held, organized by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. Although both events had their defined objectives, the idea was to seek synergies to promote ESD within the network of learning cities.
Villa María was the host city of this event. It is a city of 100,000 inhabitants with an advanced local government, which is putting into practice very interesting projects of education and citizenship empowerment, such as the Children’s Parliament. This initiative invites children to participate in democratic processes, and to implement projects of their interest with a budget that the Municipality gives them.
