Events

The World Academy of Science and Art (WAAS) has partnered with UNESCO BRIDGES and other partner organisations, including the Global Futures Laboratory of Arizona State University, SDSN Europe, and the World University Consortium to bring to you the International Conference on Education for Human Security.

The following panel is co-sponsored by WAAS and the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition in UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations progamme, led by the UK Hub at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

“Learning with (not about) the world: Anthropological methods for a resilient future”

Participants: Luci Attala, Fadwa El Guindi, Steven Hartman, Marta Neskovic & Vesna Vučinić
When? 6:00 – 6:50 pm CET on Mar 7, 2023

Thinking about the future can be overwhelming, but mechanisms that encourage creative thinking about prospects can empower and engender resilience. This panel thinks through the imaginative intersections between diverse research methods and educational activities so as to consider their role in creating a safe future fit for the generations to come.

Learning with (not about) the world is at the root of Anthropology. Anthropology views its core methodology as a relational contextual exercise whereby engaging parties learn from each other to avoid doing both social and environmental damage. This diverges from many research methods that might involve creating artificial conditions and changing variables to understand the world.

The panel will discuss how anthropological tools may be used to think about what futures we all want, whilst also encouraging the resilience and confidence to adapt in the real world. Such educational tools that enrich available methods for understanding and engaging in the world, whilst enabling learners to participate in co-creating the conditions for equitable human security at different scales, may well be essential to meeting the very real social and environmental challenges of present and future generations.

The Conference will take place online.

Register here.

The World Academy of Science and Art (WAAS) has partnered with the BRIDGES Coalition in UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformaitons programme and other partner organisations, including the Global Futures Laboratory of Arizona State University, SDSN Europe, and the World University Consortium to bring to you the International Conference on Education for Human Security.

The following session is co-sponsored by the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition and the “Turn it Around!” initiative, both anchored at Arizona State University’s Global Futures Laboratory and both supported by UNESCO. The session is organized in collaboration with People and Planet, the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector and the UNESCO Cairo Office.

“Youth-led Knowledge and Education for Climate Change and Human Security”

Participants: Marwa Alkhairo, Julianna Gwiszcz, Steven Hartman, Iveta Silova & Telmo Simões,
When? 4:00 – 4:50 p.m. CET, March 8, 2023

In a 60/90-minute interactive discussion, panelists and assembled audience members will explore the learning needs of young people in their efforts to address the climate crisis, particularly as this global challenge impacts human security at many levels regionally and locally. Climate change and human security are thus intertwined. Climate change can be a direct and indirect cause of conflict, as it exacerbates key drivers of fragility — such as the struggle for basic resources and livelihoods, the absence of which can lead to displacement and other forms of human vulnerability. The climate crisis thus has an undeniable impact in all seven elements of human security. The session will take up a number of distinct educational implications of organized efforts to address climate change-related human insecurity, including how the educational sector in the broadest sense must be mobilized to better prepare for and mitigate attendant vulnerabilities, with an emphasis on the central role of young people in societies around the world.

The Conference will take place online.

Register here.

What are the learning needs and dimensions of youth-led climate action?

The BRIDGES Coalition celebrated the International Day of Education at the LearningPlanet Festival in 2023, together with partner project People & Planet, in a co-sponsored session on the learning dimensions of youth-led climate action in a cross-regional perspective.

Foregrounding the findings of the reports ‘European Youth and Climate Change: A Community Baseline’ (People & Planet) and ‘Regional Report on Knowledge for Youth-led Climate Action in the Arab Region’ (UNESCO), this session also highlighted the experiences of FELCOS Umbria’s partners from Palestine and Kurdistan.

Learn more about both reports, and the insights they yielded, in the video of this interactive session from the festival!

#BRIDGES #PeopleAndPlanet #UNESCO #ClimateAction #YouthAction

Presentation at COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt by Antonio Louro, Vice-Mayor of the Municipality of Mação and President of the Mação Landowners Association, and Steven Hartman, Executive Director of the BRIDGES Coalition and Co-PI of the FÔLEGO sub-project “Ice and Fire.”

This presentation took place at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh on 11 November 2022, in an official side event co-organized by Future Earth and Colorado State University in partnership with the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition. The side event addressed “Wildfire increase, a challenge for Earth system and societies.”

Description of the side event

Climate and land use changes affect frequency, distribution and intensity of wildfires, which impact ecosystems, societies, weather and climate. Wildfires also provide ecosystem services and nutrients to marine biota. Here we discuss fire risk from a natural and social science view.

Presentation contributed by the BRIDGES coalition

In the municipality of Mação, Portugal, collaborative multi-stakeholder efforts joining local government, the landowners association and both academic and non-academic knowledge communities are taking an innovative approach to social-ecological planning and land management to address the persistent and worsening problems of devastating wildfires in the central region of Portugal. This presentation provides an introduction to the problem and current efforts to find effective solutions through a well coordinated transdisciplinary approach that is proactive nut reactive.

The presentation was produced by the “Ice & Fire” sub-project of FÔLEGO (producer Ines Camara), as funded by the EEA & Norway Fund, a collaboration of Academia de Produtores Culturais and the University of Iceland in partnership with the BRIDGES Coalition in UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations programme and the UNESCO Chair on Humanities and Cultural Integrated Landscape Management at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (IPT).

The UK Hub of the UNESCO BRIDGES Coalition at University of Wales Trinity Saint David launched  in an event that brought together academia, community projects, art, gaming, and indigenous knowledge.

The launch event, entitled E(e)arth, took place in The Reading Room of the Alex Building in Swansea, Wales on the 2nd of November 2022.

The launch introduced the aims, values and opportunities of the UK Hub by showcasing projects that use the strengths of the Humanities to generate innovation in thinking and action.

The launch was not a passive affair. It was active, informal and required the audience’s engagement. If we are to move into new ways of understanding, we need bold action. The launch responded to that call.

E(e)arth

The projects presented at the launch demonstrate different approaches and methods of knowing the Earth (and earth).

1. Munekan Masha: Reviving Water in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The first project was devised and is led, by a group of indigenous people from Colombia who decided to teach conventional environmental scientists their previously unrecorded methods of land regeneration. This project is presented by Prof. Alan Ereira, UWTSD, the Tairona Heritage Trust (THT) and a representative of the Kogi people, Jose Manuel Mamatacan who was trained as emissary by his people to be able to join the launch event.

2. What it is to be there

The second project presented is an interdisciplinary collaboration with a Welsh artist, Helen Acklam, who asks questions about being in the earth and uses the arts to work with the soil and explore relationships with the taken for granted lives underfoot.

3. Serious Gaming: can games save the world?

The third project, presented by GamEngage, demonstrates the imaginative and creative power of playing games to seek solutions to environmental issues. Games encourage positivity and allow players to collaborate to harness tensions and frustrations to untangle complex problems around sustainability and climate solutions.