Date: Thursday 20 April 2023
Time: 8:30am Costa Rica time (10:30 am ET; 4:30pm CET)
This webinar will offer an opportunity to reflect on “Earth, our Home” and on the following first paragraph in the Earth Charter Preamble:
“Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.”
It will generate an exchange of ideas on the importance of nurturing our capacity to care for our Home and the well-being of all life on this beautiful planet. We will look at the essential role of education in supporting this process and identify a few steps that are taking place (what and how) to reorient our efforts towards a more caring and planetary conscious society.
We will address the following questions among others:
- What is the uniqueness of Earth, our Home?
- What needs to take place in the realm of education to better respond to the challenges and needs of the current time?
- What are the efforts being made to reorient education towards a more ecologically literate civilization?
- What is the role of values and ethics in reimagining education to face our current challenges?
Speakers
Victoria Ibiwoye (Nigeria)
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Speaker, trainer and global education specialist. She is the founder of OneAfricanChild Foundation, an organization that gives children and youth in underserved in Nigeria the wings to fly through global citizenship and peace education programs. She is a pioneer who has contributed to several groundbreaking initiatives including the launch of the UNESCO SDG4Youth network.
Bernard Combes (France)
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Programme Specialist, Education for Sustainable Development, Education Sector, UNESCO. He coordinates the implementation of UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for 2030 priority action areas on Accelerating local level actions and on Empowering and mobilizing youth. With his work he seeks to foster local networks and platforms for learning and multi-stakeholder collaboration to better integrate ESD programmes and perspectives into inter-generational dialogues, communities’ planning and decision-making processes. He also works to reinforce cooperation with other agencies and stakeholders in Communication, Education and Public Awareness in the areas of biodiversity, water, oceans, cities and sustainable lifestyles. Combes is UNESCO Focal Point for the Earth Charter.
Sam Crowell (USA)
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Member of ECI Council and faculty, the ECI Center for Education for Sustainable Development, Sam has been actively engaged with the Earth Charter International and Education for Sustainable Development for over 15 years. Sam is a professor emeritus of education at California State University San Bernardino and former director at the Center for Research in Integrative Learning and Teaching. He founded the MA in Holistic and Integrative Education and is a founding member of the Network in Spirituality and Education. He is co-author of Emergent Teaching: A Path of Creativity, Significance; Transformation and Re-Enchantment of Learning: A Manual for Teacher Renewal and Classroom Transformation and two e-books on Earth Charter Pedagogy. He was recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award and the Outstanding Professional Accomplishments Award and part of the Fulbright Specialist Programme.
Leonardo Boff (Brazil)
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Theologian, philosopher writer, and former Catholic priest known for his active support for Latin American liberation theology. Boff is a member of the Earth Charter Commission and author of over 70 books including “Essential Care an Ethics of Human Nature” and “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor”