Enhance your leadership skills and knowledge to be ethical and effective sustainability leaders, making meaningful contributions toward a more sustainable and peaceful world.
A change of worldview is essential for addressing our present environmental crises and creating a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. This requires a reevaluation of core values and the cultivation of skills, attitudes, and knowledge associated with sustainability. It is essential to understand how our choices today will impact future generations, recognizing this as a moral imperative recognized by many UN agencies. Young people are key actors in this journey toward a sustainable future.
Humanity depends on the boundless energy, ideas and contributions of youth everywhere. Today and every day, let’s support and stand with young people in shaping a just and sustainable world, for people and planet. –António Guterres, UN Secretary General
Aligned with this understanding, over the past 20 years, Earth Charter International has been engaging, educating, and empowering young people to be ethical leaders capable of driving positive change. In this context, The Earth Charter Education Center, host of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter, has been offering values-driven trainings for young people on sustainability and ethical leadership. These initiatives foster leadership skills to help young people become agents of change in their communities and spheres of influence.
Designed for teens ages 14-17, this 7-week online course offers a hopeful, multicultural community in which students can cultivate leadership skills, values, and principles of sustainability.
Participant profile: High school students (14-17 years old) interested in learning about our current global challenges, leadership and how to turn conscience into action.
Language requirement: English
Fee: US $120
Course objectives
This training provides a space for participants to:
- Foster leadership, communication and inner-development skills associated with agents of change.
- Increase their understanding of our interconnected global challenges and how they relate to participants’ lives and communities.
- Identify signs of hope for the well-being of the Earth community.
- Explore their worldview and engage possible worldviews associated with a just, sustainable, and peaceful world.
- Deepen their understanding of the values and principles of the Earth Charter as they reflect a worldview of sustainability.
- Learn about systems thinking and real-world applications.
Upon successful completion of the course, participants will receive a certificate and have the opportunity to join the Earth Charter Youth Network, an international online community of motivated individuals turning conscience into action.
Course features
- 6 weekly online modules, approximately 2-3 hours of learning
- 7 live sessions with course facilitators, approximately 1 hour per week
- Videos featuring inspiring case studies, discussions of sustainability, leadership, and ethics, and weekly actions. Videos are followed by comprehension questions.
- Downloadable materials including reading materials, stories from around the world, practical tools, and various other resources
- Weekly discussion forums
- Collaborative learning communities
- Total of 22 effective hours in 7 weeks
Course Schedule
| Session | Topics | Date |
| 1 | Introduction, Inner Development and Wellbeing | 3 February |
| First live session | 5 February | |
| 2 | Sustainability and Ecoliteracy | 10 February |
| Live session | 12 February | |
| 3 | Systems Thinking | 17 February |
| Live session | 19 February | |
| 4 | The Earth Charter | 24 February |
| Live session | 26 February | |
| 5 | Leadership and Ethical Dilemmas | 3 March |
| Live session | 5 March | |
| 6 | Final Project | 10 March |
| Live session – Final Project Q&A | 12 March | |
| 7 | Final live session –Final Project Presentations & Reflections Key Learnings from the course | 19 March |
Live sessions
When: Wednesdays at 5 pm Eastern Standard Time / 3 pm Costa Rica time
Platform: Zoom
Facilitator
Sam King
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Close description
Research Associate for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Director of Integral Ecology for the U.S. Marist school network, and Earth Charter Education Center Faculty.
“We know that the crisis is getting worse every single day, and many of us are losing hope for our future. But despair is not an option. We must rise up to meet the greatest challenge of our lives with stubborn optimism.” -Xiye Bastida, Mexican climate activist and member of the Indigenous Otomi community
