Awareness Raising and Communication in Galician schools on the importance of social and environmental sustainability

This initiative came about thanks to Fundación ICO’s interest in transferring the importance of defending social and environmental sustainability to the teaching community.

The first two courses used the project El Áspero, developed in Peru, as the guiding thread. However, in the third edition, Recopades was used:  Awareness-raising on biodiversity was the backdrop in the dynamics and workshops with the students. At the end of each course, the participants drew up a Carta do Futuro (Charter for the future), filled with the commitments that the students transferred to their respective local governments, so that their ideas could be taken into account in the different coastal towns.

Emphasising the importance of the protection of the environment, cultural heritage, international cooperation and the influence in the local community, the initiative launched in the school year 2007/2008 –and renewed the following year with funding by Fundación ICO– was aimed at students in their first year of high school in Galician state schools in coastal towns.

The project was articulated in three workshops which addressed cross-cutting issues, such as:  (1) Environment and sustainable fisheries, (2) Community development, poverty, inequality, Human Rights and (3) Use of local resources.  After the workshops and the dynamics, both associated with El Áspero and Recopades, the results were reflected by the students themselves in the so-called Charter for the future (or Carta de Compromiso, da Terra or do Futuro), and presented to the community and, in particular, to social agents both local and regional. There are videos of the workshops that can be viewed in the corresponding gallery, on this same web page.

A total of 420 students participated in just the first two courses.  It should be noted that the priority is working in the same geographical areas as the MPAs, using them as an example of sustainability.