Education for Sustainable Development & Global Citizenship

Sustainable Development is about ensuring a good quality of life for everyone, now and in the future.

This can be achieved by living within the Earth’s environmental limits, while also creating a just and fair society and attaining a strong, stable economy.

Here in Wales Sustainable Development has been made a constitutional duty for the National Assembly of Wales. They have to consider sustainability in all their functions, one of which is Education.

We all face many challenges and changes to the way we live over the coming decades as climate change occurs. We all need to be prepared with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to adapt the way we live to new situations, to understand what we need to change and why. This is the task of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC).

Cardiff Sustainable Education Network (CSEN) is a network of providers of ESDGC to all sectors in education, (ie schools, colleges, youth centres, adult education and work based learning and universities), and of teachers and others involved in delivering ESDGC, formally and informally. Until recently the main function of the network was for information sharing and communicating with schools. However in the last 3 years we have had funding which has enabled us to extend our activities into INSET days for teachers, resources and grants for schools, among others.

For public awareness raising for more sustainable living we have a street festival in Cardiff City Centre called Fête of the Earth to celebrate World Environment Day.

Fête of the Earth is usually held on the first Saturday after World Environment Day, (June 5th) and takes place in a central location in Cardiff City Centre. There are stalls for information and activities, with ideas for more sustainable living for all the family and a banner parade from local school children.

For more information on CSEN see our website at www.csen.org.uk or contact Sarah Lart on 029 2087 3103.