By Silvia Ferrero, Italy/UK.
When Silvia Ferrero joined the Earth Charter International Online Certificate programme in Education for Sustainable Development in 2021, she was navigating a difficult period in her life. The anthropologist and transformational coach found renewed purpose in its vision of interconnectedness. Her understanding of personal growth expanded to embrace the relationships that connect people with the whole community of life.
An Earth Charter Educator and School Seal Verifier, Silvia brought this perspective to engineering and design students at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. Using a cup of coffee as a starting point, she invited them to draw connections between its production, trade, and consumption and the principles of the Earth Charter. Colours and symbols helped students consider the lives of people along the supply chain as well as environmental consequences.
Silvia also helped facilitate ECI courses for the online certificate programme on ESD in 2023. Across her teaching and coaching, creativity became a way to make ecological connections tangible. The Earth Charter gave her a renewed professional direction, one in which caring for ourselves grows alongside responsibility for other people and the living world.
