Second Baltic Conference on ESD
Focus on Partnership workshops
13th December 2014, 11.30-13.00
"CSR Education for company executives: spill over options ?"
Agnese Alksne, CEO of Corporate Social Responsibility, Latvia
What skills are needed to bring CSR in to organizations everyday life? We tend to forget that organizations are created by people. Systems and mechanisms are supporting the organizations trying to minimise the peoples influence, e.g., mistakes or compliance to ethics. How we can change organizations? In a workshop we would like to focus on CSR as set of values determinate by people who work in organisations. Do we know how to recognize common values and live by the values in the organisations? Where we learn to do that? Does education in universities or even schools are ready to open for value orientated education? Do we need our students to be more critical and think out of the box, e.g., create value based business models?
"ESD materials for teachers and (other) learners"
Paula Lindroos and Sinikka Suomalainen, Baltic University Programme, Finland
The participants of this workshop are invited to get acquainted with the learning materials produced by the Baltic University Programme (www.balticuniv.uu.se). The materials are produced in a wide cooperation, with examples from the whole Baltic Sea Region. The contents vary in a range from basic course on sustainable development, the Baltic Sea environment, the Baltic Sea region’s societies and culture, to environmental management and sustainable agriculture. They are also produced for different academic levels. In addition the BUP website also links to useful sources outside the Baltic Sea region. The workshop will focus on the use of these learning materials, not only in universities, but also in a wider range of formal and informal education. Participants are also encouraged to present and share their own materials.
"How the cultural historical and natural heritage impacts the sustainable development of a place?"
Agita Līviņa, PhD, Director of Institute of Social, Economic and Humanities Research, Associate professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences.
Māra Maurīte, Master Student, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences
The participants of the workshop will be invited to think about different ways how the cultural historical and natural heritage impacts sustainable development of a place and also local inhabitants - when discussing about place, than terms such as identity, belonging, community can be linked also with a heritage. The aim of the workshop is to recognize a diversity of impacting factors on different stakeholders which are involved or to be involved in processes of the development of a place, for example, locals with strong roots and connections with a place, entrants, tourists, local and external entrepreneurs. In this context it is crucial how we can communicate with different stakeholders about values and roles of cultural historical and natural heritage to promote the sustainability of place.
The workshop is prepared by the support of the State Research Programme project Economic transformation, smart growth, governance and legal framework for sustainable development of the state and society – a new approach to the creation of a sustainable learning community (EKOSOC-LV).
"Localizing global issues: Envisioning hopeful futures of local communities"
Inga Belousa, PhD, Association of Education for Sustainable Development, Latvia
Sustainable development of local communities is one of the most urgent priorities to be highlighted and implemented in the current age of globalization. It embraces not only worldviews and expectations, experiences and competences of each community member but also shared understanding of common local and global hopes and responsible engagement into co-creative building and implementing of hopeful future scenarious. The workshop will be based on inductive reasoning, holistic and interactive involvement that integrates three fields – community development, education for sustainable development, and future studies, especially contribution represented by Robert Jungk, Elise Boulding and David Hicks. To interpret the notion of sustainable development within everyday reality of community method of glocalization that translates urgent global issues into personal and local community everyday life and method of envisioning hopeful futures will be applied.
"Measuring success: How do we decide whether our ESD programs are succeeding? "
Marylin Mehlmann, Head of development and training Global Action Plan (GAP) International
What do we mean by ’successful ESD’? Let’s bring out different ideas for criteria, and see whether we can reach some consensus. Thereafter we will choose one of two topics for the remainder of the workshop, using the criteria as a starting point:
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Participatory evaluation methods: An introduction to some basic lessons we have learnt about collaborative learning-from-experience.
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Measurements and statistics: Some key points about measuring resource use, behaviour change, and change of attitude. How can behaviour statistics be aggregated and used?
"The working of a project financing institution"
Adi Musabasic and Ann Häger, Swedish Institute, Baltic Sea Unit, Department for International Relations
What aspects are important to consider when applying for project funding? This workshop will cover the policy, assessment criteria and assessment process of project funding. These aspects of the project funding mechanisms of the Swedish Institute will be presented by the workshop leaders, followed by discussion among the participants about different project funding institutions which are relevant to ESD in the Baltic Sea Region and discussion on the participant’s experiences of project funding institutions.