SADC
Regional Environmental Education Programme

UN Decade of ESD: Workshop to inform the development of southern African guidelines for participation in the UN Decade

Aim of the workshop:

• To share local / national experiences that may inform the development of guidelines for participation in the UN DESD.

1. Planning the workshop

NATIONAL WORKSHOP : If you are running a national workshop , please try to ensure that you invite key national stakeholders that have an EDUCATIONAL mandate or interest to the workshop. These should ideally be from the following sectors / interest groups:

• Environmental / Natural Resource Management ministries (including agricultural ministries as agriculture and NRM are closely linked)
• Educational Ministries (including youth, schooling, higher education, early childhood education, adult education, curriculum development and assessment institutes where possible).
• Parastatals and national NGO's who are working in any of the following (or related) sectors / areas: Environmental and environmental management education, sustainable development, Gender education, Health education, Sustainable agriculture education, Human Rights education, Community development education etc.

LOCAL CONSULTATION: If you are running a local consultation , try to invite stakeholders to your meeting who have a concern with sustainable development and education. You may want to run a one day workshop similar to the one being run at a national level.

OR

You could just have a smaller 'in house' or local meeting / or a series of meetings. Look through the workshop questions in the workshop toolkit to guide your discussions where relevant.

Consultations can be held in schools, in community contexts, in faith communities, in universities or colleges, in government departments, in NGO's, in CBO's, in industries and business, in the context of different forums etc. etc. etc.

NOTE: Due to a limited budget, there is unfortunately no financial support for local level consultations. We request ESD friends to be creative and 'link up' with other existing activities, or plan small scale, low cost meetings that do not require much resources.

A workshop toolkit is available (www.sadc-reep.org.za). It can be used for both the national workshops and the local consultations. It has the following components:

1. Guidelines for facilitators (you are reading this document now)
2. A suggested workshop programme
3. Workshop questions to guide discussions in the proposed workshop sessions (these correspond with the proposed document outline)
4. A power point presentation providing background to the initiative (as captured in the Concept Note ); as well as the questions for focus group discussions in the workshops / consultation meetings, and a short summary of the Way Forward
5. An overview of the proposed document (broad outline)

Download all these tools (www.sadc-reep.org.za), and adapt them where necessary for your workshop or consultation.

NOTE: To ensure consistency of feedback, we would like to request that you work as closely as you can with this toolkit, and the questions provided.

2. Background information and support

It would be important to familiarise yourself with at least the following documents, before the workshop:

• The concept note and request from support from SADC for the development of these guidelines. Available on the SADC Regional EE Programme website: www.sadc-reep.org .za

• The UNESCO UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Implementation Plan from the UNESCO website: http://portal.unesco.org/education

• For southern African guidelines on some aspects of ESD practice, see the Gaberone Declaration developed by the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa on www.eeasa.org .za

Should you wish to discuss the workshop process, or if you need additional support in preparing for the workshop or for a local consultation, please contact the consultation co-ordinator:

Tichaona Pesanayi
Environment Africa
81 Second Street, Mutare, Zimbabwe
P O Box 2000, Mutare
Zimbabwe
Email addresses: eafrica.manica@utande.co.zw ; or tichpesanayi@yahoo.com
Tel/Fax: + 263 20 63504/67762
Cell: + 263 91 38 64 38

3. Running the workshop

To ensure consistency of feedback, we have provided a 'suggested workshop programme'.
The programme has been developed to send out to workshop participants prior to the workshop.
You may need to adjust the timing of the sessions or change aspects of the programme / questions as you feel necessary.

Suggested workshop programme and handouts

08h30 - 9h00: Orientation and background to the project

(This could include a short orientation to the UN Decade on ESD, and the southern African initiative to develop guidelines for participation in the UN Decade)

Handout: You could use the 'Concept Note' and the letter requesting our support for the process from the SADC secretariat (see www.sadc-reep.org.za) in this session. You can also draw material from other sources where necessary. Some ideas for this session are provided in the power point presentation.

09h00 - 09h45: Session 1 : Focus group on contextual challenges

(During this session, participants could be asked to share their insights into the main contextual issues and challenges facing ESD practitioners in southern Africa).

Handout: You could use the questions for Session 1 to guide discussions during this session. Questions are included on a worksheet and in the power point presentation.

Note: Please ask participants to bring any documentation (e.g. policy documents, project reports etc.) that may inform the development of the guidelines for the DESD. If possible collect them for us, as we may need them in the final writing phase. If participants require their documentation back, please make sure that names and addresses are recorded.

09h45 - 10h30: Session 2 : Focus group discussion on sectoral / institutional contexts and experience

(During this session participants could be asked to share insights into how their sector / institution is undertaking ESD work. The session will also include a focus on inter-sectoral, multi-disciplinary and other forms of partnership and collaboration)

Handout: You could use the questions for Session 2 to guide discussions during this session. Questions are included in a worksheet and in the power point presentation. Try to encourage participants to spend more time on questions 3, 4 and 5.

TEA

11h00 - 12h30: Session 3: Focus group discussions on ESD practice

(During this session participants could be asked to share examples of practice and challenges associated with different aspects of ESD practice, for example teaching and learning approaches, working with indigenous and local knowledge, inclusivity, participation, values and relationships, and critical and creative thinking).

Handout: You could use the questions for session 3 to guide discussions during this session. Depending on the size of the group, you may need to ask participants to work in different interest groups to discuss the different questions. Allow for participant choice in responding to the questions where possible.

LUNCH

13h30 - 15h30: Session 4: Focus group discussions on extending ESD practice

(During this session participants could be asked to share examples of practice and challenges associated with key aspects of that extend and support ESD practice such as policy making and review, advocacy and vision building, networking and partnerships, Information Communication Technologies, institutional capacity building, professional development, curriculum and programme development, learning support materials development and use, research and innovation, monitoring and evaluation, working creatively with resources).

Handout: You could use the questions for session 4 to guide discussions during the session. Ask participants to work in different interest groups. A set of questions is provided that is applicable to all the different interest groups. It is not necessary to cover all the categories during your workshop. As far as possible, let the focus of the interest groups be defined by the interests of the workshop participants.

TEA

15h45 - 16h30: Way forward

(During this session discussions could be held on the way forward).

Handout: A regular ' Process Update ' will be available on the SADC-REEP website. This can be downloaded and shared with workshop participants. A slide on 'The Way Forward' is included in the powerpoint presentation.

NOTE: Please feel free to adapt this programme and the materials for the workshop as you feel necessary.

The materials provided in the workshop toolkit merely provide some starting points and a start-up framework for the initiative.

4. Reporting and giving feedback

Encourage participants to keep detailed records of their discussions during the workshop sessions. We are particularly interested in detailed examples of practice.

The workshop facilitator/s will be asked to write up a detailed report of the workshop proceedings. Original workshop material (e.g. notes etc. can also be sent in directly to the SADC-REEP).

Please submit all workshop / consultation feedback to the SADC-REEP by no later than 31 August 2005 . Feedback should be submitted to us

A full participant's list with contact details, will need to be incorporated in the report so that all participants can be acknowledged.

Thank you for participating in this process, and for being willing to organise a local level consultation and / or a national workshop to allow others to share their insights and experience with others in the southern African region.

Together we can unlock and extend the creativity and potential of our
region's people to ensure a better future for all!