ESD

Education for Sustainable Development

Africa for SDGs; My Goals Foundation commits with a sense of urgency to an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) towards the realization of the SDGs initiative. This initiative provides a single, renewed education agenda that is holistic, ambitious and aspirational, leaving no one behind. This is to reaffirm the vision of the worldwide movement for Education for All initiated in Jomtien in 1990 which was later re-iterated in Dakar in 2000. The Muscat agreement which was adopted at the Global Education for All (EFA) in 2014 after broad consultations helped inform the proposed education targets on the SDGs thus making this concept for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for SDGs timely and urgent. It is relevant as it echoes the 1994 Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on special needs education and the 1993 UN Standard Rules for Equalization by promoting inclusivity, encouraging decentralized and participatory learning for vulnerable, marginalized and persons with disability
ESD for SDGs initiative seeks to provide capacity in form of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes while incubating and accelerating innovative ideas that contribute towards creating awareness around the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and promoting their integration in development plans, public action, advocacy and accountability. The program seeks to inspire youth involvement and participation in the mainstreaming of SDGs through the ESD, while exploiting the positive elements of the demographic bulge in Africa and leaving no one behind.

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Indicative Strategies

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1. With a median age of 19.4 in Africa, and the largest population of Africa spending most of their time in learning institutions, this program seeks to activate learning institutions as hubs that equip learners, teachers and education managers as SDGs champions and activate them as agents towards the realization of sustainable development through the practical engagement with the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).
2. Indicatively, learners from all learning institutions of both sexes and ages will be provided with opportunities to acquire, throughout life the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to build peaceful, healthy and sustainable societies.
3. Students will develop a holistic outlook on the world around them having being equipped with the ability to distinguish different aspects of life as interconnected system which can be transformed by their active engagement in finding solutions through innovative ideas.
4. In contribution to the 1994 Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on special needs education and the 1993 UN Standard Rules for Equalization by promoting inclusivity, the initiative will recognize and encourage learners with special needs to participate in innovative solutions and promotion of the rights of persons with disability.
5. In the spirit of the Jomtien 1990 declaration of Education for All and the Dakar Framework for Action, the initiative seeks to promote inclusion of the vulnerable and marginalized learners in innovation and lifelong learning.
6. This initiative will appreciate the critical role that teachers play as agents of change and key facilitators in incorporating sustainability in learning by building their capacity to increase their competence in facilitating ESD for SDGs.
7. As a motivation, the program will partner with other stakeholders to come up with awards and scholarships to scale effective innovative ideas and solutions from the ESD and SDGs champion students and teachers who will have successfully disseminated good practices on education for sustainable development and global citizenship education within and between countries to enhance international cooperation and understanding.
8. With focus on innovation through the strengthening of agriculture, arts, culture and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education (STEM), the program seeks to promote innovative participatory innovation for all participants, learners and educators in order for them to engage practically and proactively in finding solutions to the challenges in their communities and societies using locally available means and materials focusing.
9. Considering the importance of culture in achieving sustainability, the program will promote conditions and the awareness of cultural expressions and heritage and their diversity in learning and the realization of the sustainable development goals.
10. Based on UNESCO’s outcome document of the Technical Consultation on Global Citizenship Education, learners will come out with deep knowledge of global issues and universal values such as justice, equality, dignity and respect in order to foster values that promote human rights.

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