Our Director Donna Goodman Was Part of this Webcast for:

UN Actions on Education for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Consumption and Production: Activities of Interagency Committee for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

Organizer: United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS)
Date: Tuesday, 11 May 2010

You can view the full Article and visit UNU’s Website here

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Speakers’ Profiles

Mark Richmond is a social scientist and educationist who, as an academic and as a UNESCO staff member, has been engaged with ‘education for development’ issues over many years. He graduated from the University of Sheffield (UK) with an honours degree in Political Theory and Institutions and has a Master of Philosophy degree in comparative education from the University of Hull (UK). He has worked in a range of secondary, post-secondary and higher education positions in the UK and the USA, with particular interests in (a) the policy/research interface relating to structured social inequalities and (b) education in developing countries, with special regard to policies of educational reform in Latin America and the Caribbean and educational responses to emergency, refugee and post-crisis situations, notably in sub-Saharan Africa.

On joining UNESCO in 1994, Mr Richmond worked on establishing post-crisis educational programmes in NW Somalia, refugee camps in Tanzania and post-genocide Rwanda before becoming head of UNESCO’s Programme of Education for Emergencies and Reconstruction (PEER) in Nairobi, Kenya, covering the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes regions. Subsequently at UNESCO Headquarters, he was involved in supporting educational programmes in field operations in sub-Saharan Africa, Iraq and Kosovo; in 1999-2000, he served as Deputy Head of UNMIK’s Department of Education and Culture in Kosovo. Mr Richmond then worked on the reform of UNESCO’s Education Sector and on the follow-up to the World Education Forum on Education for All (Dakar, Senegal, 2000). During the period 2001-2006, he served as Senior Executive Officer in the Office of the Director-General of UNESCO in the capacity of English speechwriter and focal point for education. Mr Richmond is currently Director of the Division for the Coordination of UN Priorities in Education, responsible for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005-2014); education and HIV & AIDS (he is the UNESCO Global Coordinator for HIV and AIDS); and education and post-conflict/post-disaster situations, including the path-breaking ‘Education under Attack’ studies of targeted violence against learners, teachers, academics and educational institutions.
Sylvie Lemmet, a French national, has had a distinguished career in the field of management and environment. She brings to UNEP a strong commitment and dedication to environmental sustainability. She also brings extensive knowledge of and experience from the international and national development scene.

In her career, Sylvie has held a series of senior management positions and has led large teams to success. She has worked with the private sector, NGOs, international organizations and most recently as Senior Auditor with the French Cour des Comptes. In leadership roles, her responsibilities have ranged from general management to project, budget and financial management. She has been the Chief Financial Officer and, later, a member of the Executive Board of Médecins sans Frontières working in the field of humanitarian emergency assistance. As senior official with The World Bank, Sylvie was responsible for large scale projects and initiatives in the area of environment and sustainable development. She has most recently played a very active role in improving the public sector efficiency in France. She has also participated as a member of Cour des Comptes’ audit team of the United Nations.
Sylvie holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), respectively as well as a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from École des Hautes Etudes Commerciales and a degree in Economics from the Sorbonne University.

Zinaida Fadeeva works as Research Fellow for the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Programme at UNU-IAS. Current research activities are centered upon the reorientation of higher education institutions towards vehicles of change for sustainability and interorganisational collaboration for sustainable development. Chief roles include creation and management of Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE), ProSPER.Net and capacity development for CSP for business and public sector. Before joining UNU-IAS, worked as Research Associate at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden. Work here focused on building an understanding of structural, dynamic and contextual characteristics that affect cross-sectoral networking processes and the role of networks as translators of sustainability ideas.

Dr. Fadeeva will present the strategies of RCEs and PRoSPER.Net development and their activities in the CSP education and capacity development.

Donna L. Goodman is the Founder and Executive Director of the Earth Child Institute (ECI), an international organization accredited as an associate NGO to the United Nations Department of Public Information and an NGO observer to the UNFCCC. ECI is dedicated to supporting the local actions and empowerment of children and Young people by building capacity and consulting with governments, the private sector and UN system partners to develop and implement holistic, child-centred rights-based inter-sectoral educational solutions as a mechanism for community-based adaptation to climate change, water and environmental sustainability.

From 2004-2008, she served as an international professional for UNICEF, most recently as Programme Advisor, Climate Change and Environmental Education, leading development of UNICEF’s Climate Change Environmental Education Resource Pack for Child Friendly Schools, children’s environmental health programming (with UNEP and WHO) and initiating development of internal frameworks to address climate change. Prior to this, she was Programme Manager, Environment and Young people focusing on water, sanitation and hygiene education in schools and in support of youth participation in the sector.

She is the lead author of Climate Change: Take Action Now: A Facilitators Guide to Supporting the Local Actions of Children; Climate Change and Children: A Human Security Challenge, published by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in December 2008, UNICEF Climate Change and Children, UNICEF Water Alert! interactive learning module game, and many other case studies, discussion papers and programme guidance documents.

Prior to joining UNICEF, she worked with the United Nations Department of Public Information as author of Every Body Counts, Every Drop Matters, United Nations Classroom Resource Guide on Water, the United Nations Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues policy paper on Indigenous Peoples and Water, and the Parliament of World Religions on issues of water and trans-boundary cooperation. Ms Goodman is a single mother of three children and lives in the United States.

Axumite Gebre Egziabher holds a PhD in urban planning, and has over 20 years of professional experience on a range of sustainable urban development issues, in both operational and normative aspects. Her experience spans over city, national, regional and international levels. Working in different capacities for UN-HABITAT for over fifteen years, Dr. Axumite has played a pivotal role in key inter governmental and inter-agency processes involving the debate, formulation and review of international development commitments and coordination of their implementation.

Roger A Petry is an Assistant Professor at Luther College at the University of Regina in the Department of Philosophy and Classics. He is a Rhodes Scholar and has obtained degrees in philosophy and mathematics from the University of Regina, philosophy, politics, and economics and philosophical theology from the University of Oxford, and an interdisciplinary PhD awarded in 2008 through the Canadian Plains Studies Program at the University of Regina. His doctoral thesis contrasts university innovation for sustainable development in relation to commercialization and open source licensing strategies. He is co-coordinator of the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development in Saskatchewan, one of 62 RCEs recognized globally by the United Nations University to help advance the U.N. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). He grew up in Regina and is married with two children.

Sara Svensson
Sara Svensson is currently a global representative for Children & Youth in the UNEP Major Groups Facilitating Committee, and her UNEP involvement started with a mandate as Tunza Youth Advisor 2007-2009. Sara is involved in the youth climate movement and is a committed contributor to SCP activities. On local and international level she’s running campaigns aimed at inspiring, educating and empowering young people for more sustainable lifestyles.

In the context of the Commission on Sustainable Development 18th session,  the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies presents – in cooperation with UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF and UN HABITAT – this side event. Its objective is to highlight the critical role of education in promoting sustainable consumption and production as well as associated challenges and opportunities for action from the perspectives of different stakeholders.

Development of more sustainable consumption and production (SCP) systems requires the participation of various stakeholders dealing with policies, innovations, human and institutional actions. In this event, business, civil society organizations, government, IHEs as well as other representatives from critical partners of UN agencies will present their perspectives on the potential of educational processes to contribute to the furthering of SCP systems.

UN agency members of the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) will provide an overview of UN initiatives within the framework of DESD and engage the different stakeholders in a discussion that will address three issues: 1) role of education and learning in development of SCP; 2) challenges and opportunities to create learning systems for SCP and 3) strategies, tools and good practice in the area of education and SCP. This will be followed by short contributions from representatives of diverse stakeholders groups: IHE, youth, local government, civil society and businesses. In the final stages, a concluding discussion will focus on potential for scaling up good practices through partnerships and engagement with UN agencies.

To learn more or to listen to other broadcast’s from United Nation’s University UNU please visit their website.

You can see this entire event here Watch the full Webcast

Mother Earth… Love is All We Need

“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
– Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery, from The Little Prince

The Earth is alive. She is constantly moving and she is constantly evolving. Not only is our planet engaged in an eternal cosmic dance within a universe of possibility but she is firmly and intimately engaged in the day to day life of each and every being that has ever lived here.

Every time that you dig a hold, stomp your foot, spill a drink, play a game, cut a tree or build a road, the Earth is accommodating your whim. It is not just your whim, because in any given moment there are millions of other beings that are doing millions of other things… all at the same time!

Have you ever considered the planet in this way? Is our planet a dormant victim or our careless stewardship or is she a nurturing and patient mother who is waiting for her children to take responsibility for their actions?

Under observation, the latter holds true. Consider the difference between nonviolence and passivity. When someone is passive, they are not taking any action and they remain the same no matter what happens. Nonviolence is an active stance. When someone is nonviolent, they are actively pursuing potential avenues to change. This is a perfect analogy to the position of our planet in today’s world.

The Earth does, in fact, react to every action that takes place, every moment of every day. We experience her response by way of our daily weather patterns, climate change, shifts of continents, earthquakes, volcanoes, forest fires, floods, and tidal waves and river flows.

As human beings, our first contact in the physical world is in the womb of the mother. In this place, the human embryo develops within a space of warmth and unconditional love. The Earth is the mother of humanity. Over time she has held and nurtured our development and growth as a species with the deepest love.

The disrespect that modern society has demonstrated in our interactions with Mother Earth are clearly manifest in daily life as a society in the way that we choose personally to honor or dishonor the women who give us life, our human mothers.

Mothering is not an easy task. At times it takes the patience of a saint and the strength and determination of an army, but at the end of the day, it is all about love. It is the simplest deed, the invisible ‘je ne se qua’ that makes the difference… gets us through the day. It is the same with the Earth.

The most essential forces of life on Earth are invisible to the human eye, but are in fact Mother Earth’s invisible guidance in our lives. We are held to the mother by the invisible force of gravity. To this day, with all the advances in post-modern technology, scientists are not able to explain why gravity exists, only how it behaves. Can you believe this? Every being on earth unconditionally trusts that when they take a step, the Earth will be there to hold them. In essence, the same inherent trust and connection is experienced in the bond between most human and animal newborns and their mothers.

Magnetism, too, is an invisible force that is necessary for life on Earth. In fact, the Earth is a giant magnet with a north and a south pole, as is every form of life. Most of the conveniences of modern life rely on magnetism in some form. From electricity itself, to refrigerators, cars, stereos and airplanes, humanity depends upon the invisible force of magnetism.

The attraction and repulsion of magnetic force is enacted in daily human life over and over again. At times we meet a person who we are instantly attracted to and at other times we are unexplainably repelled by someone we do not personally know. Magnets can be used as a neutral tool for understanding conflict resolution and dialogue. They offer an objective platform for what can at times appear to be an emotional issue. When we are talking about magnets, the need to be “right” or “wrong” is dispelled. It just “is as it is” and the challenge is to work it out without attachment to the outcome.

Young people of all ages are able to grasp this concept and apply it to their lives. The resulting dialogue and interaction from simple magnet activity with young people living in areas of armed conflict is very powerful. Taking this concept to the next level, one can experience the human electro-magnetic field by holding outstretched hands toward a partner and actually feeling the tingling sensation at the place of contact. Children and adults are able to experience this phenomenon and begin to apply the deeper meaning of invisible forces in their lives.

In conclusion, we are able to close the circle with a deeper understanding of and respect for the invisible ways in which Mother Earth supports and nurtures our existence. If we can remember the simple, yet profound fact that love is the most powerful of all invisible forces, we can understand the need for personal accountability, mutual respect and compassion toward all humanity and the earth.

Perspectives in Philanthropy p.38. (Link will open the PDF)

A Climate For Change… Harnessing an Unparalleled Opportunity for All

All over the world, children, adolescents and young people, representing nearly on-third of the global population, are concerned with the increasing threat posed by rising global carbon emissions, the changing climate and environmental degradation.

By Donna L. Goodman

This is the moral challenge of our generation. Not only are the eyes of the world upon us. More important, succeeding generations depend on us. We cannot rob our children of their future.

-United Nations Secretary Genera, Ban Ki-moon
Address to the High-Level segment of the UN Climate Change Conference’ Bali, Indonesia, 12 December 2007

The new vision for children in the 21st century foresees a world where children survive and grow up to their full human potential, capable of living a long and healthy life, with opportunities for learning, earning and participating in social, cultural and civic endeavors. It is a world where children are seen and treated as citizens with valid claims on the attention and resources of society, as respected participants, and as people who hold and exercise rights at the same time as they learn to respect and uphold the rights of others.

Recognizing that the world’s population is young, with some 2.2 billion people under the age of 18, this article is intended to underscore the impacts of climate change on children and most vulnerable populations of the world, while seeking to o#er positive and proactive solutions that can be taken by corporations, governments and each and every individual expressing their ‘Power of One’ toward an empowered era of climate prosperity.

Why Climate Change?

Climate change is a process caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including the carbon dioxide released when we burn fossil fuels. “ese gases act like a blanket around the planet, trapping heat in the atmosphere. As a result experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that average global temperatures will rise by between 1.8° C and 4.0° C by the year 2100. However, because weather systems are complicated and interlinked, climate change can also mean more rain and decreased temperatures in some areas and an increase in the intensity and in some cases the number of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, cyclones and severe storms.

Wealthy and rapidly growing countries are the major consumers of fossil fuels and other resources, yet, most of these countries are located in the northern hemisphere and are not yet experiencing the brunt of many climatic changes that have already been set into motion. (2) Today’s impacts of climate change are often felt more in poor countries in the south, where many people are already more vulnerable and struggling to deal with environmental circumstances linked with chronic poverty, such as the scarcity of water, food and clean energy,most notably:

Access to fresh water is essential for life, health and livelihoods. Climate change is expected to bring more droughts, floods and rising sea levels which will make finding clean and fresh water more difficult. Droughts and flooding affect water quality by damaging water pipes and depleting reserves, causing human waste to leak into water supplies and increasing salinity of groundwaters. Less available freshwater means that people will save it to drink and use it less to wash hands and keep clean, thus increasing the prevalence of water-related illness. Fully preventable diarrheal disease caused by dirty water is one of the world’s biggest killers of young children.

Damage to food crops is brought about by drought, temperature variations, wildfires, severe weather events, pests and diseases and floods these events are already adding to the world’s food crisis, as staple crops like rice, wheat and corn are affected in many places. Worsening malnutrition severely impacts the health and survival of women and children.

Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever(3) which are carried by insects are also affected by changing temperatures because the insects will be able to breed in areas where they were not able to in the past. Pools of stagnant water, left by foods and cyclones become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Increases in the intensity of extreme weather events linked to climate change, such as droughts, floods, cyclones and tornadoes also put people in danger, often destroying the places where they live and work, and leaving behind damaged crops, contaminated water supplies and broken families.

Displacement and migration of families almost always have a negative impact on children. They increase the possibility of child abuse and trafficking. In the aftermath of disasters, children may be pulled out of school and put to work to help their families recover.

Smoke and fumes from burning fossil fuels in homes, buses, cars and factories increase greenhouse gas emissions, making climate change worse, while also directly increasing serious respiratory health problems by polluting the air we breathe. Smoke and fumes from burning biomass (i.e. wood and coal) cooking stoves also worsen respiratory health problems and release harmful CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

All over the world, children, adolescents and young people, representing nearly one-third of the global population, are concerned with the increasing threat posed by rising global carbon emissions, the changing
climate, water scarcity, environmental degradation and increasing
natural disasters. Many are already experiencing the impact of these threats and are being forced to leave their homes and find other ways to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.

Yet, climate change offers humankind an amazingly wonderful opportunity to change our ways! It is an exciting time in which we can shift a global society of nations away from a paradigm of degradation, inequality and scarcity. It is an opportunity to become an international community that embraces abundant and renewable resources and values the interdependent nature of all sentient beings and forms of life, with each one understanding and taking responsibility for her/his own actions under the stewardship of confident, creative thinkers and doers.

We may not be able to completely stop the changes to our climate that are already occurring, but we can take action to reduce the extent of its current and future impact by empowering and educating our children and preparing our communities to deal with its consequences. We can take individual and collective action to reduce use of energy and the release of carbon dioxide that we are responsible for. We can take action to reduce the chances of our community being affected by shortages in food and water, and the spread of diseases.

Some actions do both. For example, creating school gardens can help tackle greenhouse gas levels (since vegetables grown there can be used in place of produce driven or flown in from far away), and can also increase food security for the community, while instilling a sense of personal responsibility and accountability associated with daily tending to the garden. Another example is a school disaster risk-reduction program which engages students in community mapping activities while restoring degraded environments and learning what to do if a natural disaster does occur, and how we can help those around us.

This is a model of engaged and empowered citizenry, an emerging era of renewing and renewable resources, including political will and personal commitment, enhancing our collective ability to adapt to unexpected change and make informed lifestyle choices which will lead to an equitable and sustainable future. It is critically important for the unique vulnerabilities, rights and capacities of children and young people to be addressed in these emerging developments and initiatives. (4)

Realizing this vision for children will require the identi!cation and development of catalytic and creative interventions that build on positive values, cultural knowledge and local initiatives, while challenging attitudes and practices which are detrimental to the rights and development of the child. It will also require existing partnerships to be strengthened and new ones forged that will deliver essential resources, care, protection and services to children where they live, in the home and community. One such catalytic and creative intervention is called “The Power of One School—an initiative which enhances the ability of one school to serve as a community leader and global citizen by partnering with and inspiring other schools around the world to co-create a peaceful and sustainable planet.

Power of One Schools will seek to establish a unique and innovative business model for !nancing its school kits fueled by the Power of One Dollar, which is a new financing paradigm which builds on the ability of any individual, young or old, rich or poor, to contribute one dollar (per hour, day, week, month, or year) to mobilize financing from grassroots initiatives and matching contributions from governments, corporations and foundations for the Power of One school kits.

Donna Goodman is the Executive Director of Earth Child Institute, an international NGO dedicated to supporting governments, the private sector and the UN system partner to develop and build local capacity to implement holistic, rights-based inter-sectoral educational solutions as a mechanism for community -based adaptation to climate change, water and environmental sustainability.

The views expressed herein are those of the author and don not necessarily represent the views of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, or any subsidiary, business arrangement, or any of their officers, directors, or employees.  All opinions are subject to change without notice.

1. UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2008 Table 6, p. 137

2. Intergovernmanetal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC working Group II. Climate Change 2007; Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Policymaker’s Summary, page 9.

3. Akachi, Yoko, Donna Goodman, David Parker (2009), Global Climate Change and Child Health: A review of pathways, impacts and measures to improve the evidence base. Innocenti Discussion Paper No. IDP 2009-03. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.

4. UNICEF, Climate Change and Children: a Human Security Challenge, 2008

Perspectives in Philanthropy p.38. (Link will open the PDF)

Special Thanks again to Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

To Contact Earth Child Institute about the work they are doing or to get involved

We are at the UNFCCC Latin America and Caribbean regional workshop on Article 6 right now: Helping to strengthen countries to integrate climate change and environmental education and to empower and engage with young people toward sustainable change!

Earth Child Institute is working with representatives from 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries with UNICEF, British Council and others at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at a workshop in Dominican Republic to strengthen and support countries to integrate climate change environmental education into schools and to engage and empower adolescents and young people to combat climate change.

ECI was honored to convene the International Interdisciplinary Course Children’s Rights’ first thematic focus on ‘Child rights and climate change’ in a Globalized World” in Ghent Belgium Click here “Let’s Take Care of the Planet!” We are so excited to work with and talk with so many youth that care and are interested in taking care of the environment. While we are there we will be Facilitating workshops and making connections with others who are working hard on some of the issues that affect all of us.

Invitation:

The Conference, as well as the issues it engenders, is to be the expression of joint action among national governments, civil-society organizations, and international institutions, and will take place during the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, an initiative of the United Nations/UNESCO. Invitation: let’s take care of the planet Uploaded by CharteRH. We will also be visiting a sustainable school in the Amazon Forest. More News to follow…

Educadora dos EUA visita Escola da Floresta

Chegou a Santarém, Donna L. Goodman, da organização norte-americana ECI – Earth Child (Instituto Terra Criança).

Com sede em Nova Iorque (EUA), a ECI trabalha com crianças e adolescentes em condições sub-humanas, fazendo pesquisas sobre as mudanças climáticas e a influência dessas mudanças na vida das crianças e adolescentes. É um dos parceiros do UNICEF – Fundo das Nações Unidas para a Infância.

Santarém foi indicado à representante da organização internacional como um dos pontos para o acompanhamento de experiências desenvolvidas com crianças e adolescentes a partir da educação ambiental.

O principal trabalho conhecido em Santarém por Donna Goodman foi o da Escola da Floresta, de iniciativa da prefeitura.

Ontem, Donna Goodman acompanhou, juntamente com um grupo de alunos da escola municipal Princesa Isabel, da Nova Republica, as atividades na Escola da Floresta, localizada na rodovia que liga Santarém a Alter do Chão, na comunidade de Caranazal.

Na programação, a visitante foi acompanhada pela secretária municipal de Educação, Lucineide Pinheiro, e pelo presidente do Conselho Municipal de Educação, Alípio Gomes.

Fonte: Prefeitura de Santarém// Foto: Ronaldo Ferreira