Support to community-based learning and development

[WCESD_CommunityLearning]

Dear all, 

Greetings from rainy Hamburg, Germany! 

In a few days, a workshop on 'Local Communities in Action: Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development' will be organised in the WCESD in Nagoya, Japan. 

For those of you joining the workshop and those who are not physically participating in the workshop, we'd like you to share your experiences and views on what are the key enabling support measures to support local communities' learning and development. 

You may select one or two or combination of commitments from the Okayama Commitment 2014 (attached) to share examples of good practices and key support measures. 

For example, I have strong interests to commitments concerning youth and women.  

Young people are playing increasing important roles in the community-based learning and development. Supporting their ideas and action can enrich the local communities' learning environment. 

Community Matters: Fulfilling Learning Potentials for Young Men and Women recommended to involve young men and women in all stages of planning, management and delivery of services through community learning centres. You may like to read testimonies of empowerment by such youth in Asia and the Pacific, which is published here. 

Several cases of community environment protection activities proposed by school children and implemented by community members in Okayama City were reported in the Kominkan-CLC International Conference on ESD held in Okayama, Japan last month. 

Literacy and education for sustainable development and women's empowerment published by UIL this year makes four key recommendations. One of them is : 

the importance of literacy to sustainable development and the empowerment of women should be explicitly recognised within the post-2015 EFA goals, as a first step towards mobilising adequate resources for adult education and lifelong learning. 

There are also some case studies on community development in the UNESCO Effective Literacy and Numeracy Practices Database. Please visit here. 

Best wishes, Rika @ UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning