RCE Brittany-2017
RCE Brittany brings together organizations at local and regional level to jointly promote ESD with local and regional communities. Committed organizations include schools and universities (formal education), but also NGOs, associations and companies involved in ESD and providing informal education. Education, research, consultation, communication and action in different fields taking into account the SDGs related to ESD are some of the RCE Brittany's key roles.
RCE Brittany aspires to achieve the goals of the second United Nations Decade for ESD, adapting global goals to the context of the region in which it operates. The stakeholders constitute an innovating platform for sharing information, projects, experience, advices, in order to accelerate the search for solutions at the local level through ESD, by developing the key targets of the ESD based education original concept.. The vision of RCE Brittany is also to be open to the needs in ESD of the countries in the South of the planet, especially speaking french african countries..
The RCE Brittany's governance structure has three boards : a Board of Partners, a Steering Committee and an Executive Board with the office of the Director and the Secretariat. The aim is to channel, organize and coordinate Energies, to monitor the achievement of the projects in ESD, and to develop new projects. The five pillars are : education, research, consultation, communication and action. The council of partners includes organizations, institutions, associations, NGOs and companies. Meetings are held each time it's necessary. The Steering Committee is an advisory group with whom RCE is constantly in touch. His role is to guide, to define, to identify projects and actions to be taken on a priority basis. This committee oversees the coordination of partners and the integration of projects results, and ensures the RCE development. It follows the evolution of RCE global projects and assesses strategic responses applicable to RCE Brittany, it commits relationships with other RCEs, it evaluates appropriate responses and actions coming from new potential partners. The secretariat has an administrative role : it enables communication between the stakeholders and RCE Brittany : exchange of information, coordination, consultation ; it writes reports, synthesis, the minutes of meetings and general assemblies, all types of documents, and ensures their dispatching to partners ; it ensures the information and communication cohesion.
Our main strategies remain to make Brittany an open region in teaching and learning, oriented towards the future, regardless of time, place, method of teaching and the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the RCE Brittany "Spring Book" has been entirely translated in French and is now a complete bilingual book ready to be published. This is an important point because an extension of RCE Bretagne was created in Normandy to introduce the OPEDUCA Project in schools and professional circles through "Master Classes", in order to develop the teaching of sustainability in an area where it is less developed than in Brittany. The Spring Book will be a necessary reference tool. Another strategy is to encourage innovation and personal valuable projects.
The main achievements of RCE Brittany in 2016-2017 concerned the goals : integrating SD in Education, implementing projects according to the SDGs as defined in the Global Action Programme in ESD, and accelerating the search for sustainable solutions at the local level.
Integrating SD in Education through the implementation of "OPEDUCA Masterclasses" in Normandy, as an extension of OPEDUCA Programme in Brittany, in schools and professional circles to show the interest of developing Mind Maps and Concept Maps in Education.
Integrating SD in Education, too, through a local Youth Project consisting in making Briton students and Foreign Unaccompanied minors, welcomed by the town of Arradon, meet and share experiences, the challenge of this project being to give these young migrants an opportunity to experience the best in order to integrate the codes and rules of the "living together" in our community, and, for the young Britons, to be educated to Fraternity, and to discover that "Alterity" is a source of enrichment and not a threat, and that conflicts must be managed and solved in the respect of the orther, on both sides (SDG 18 : the Migrants).
SDG 6 : "Ensure access to sanitation for all and ensure sustainable management of water resources" ; the RCE Brittany stakeholder ABADAS, a NGO, has defined a water sanitation project in Burkina Faso, Africa, the lack of rainwater management with rainy seasons and important rainfalls increasing the risk of pollution of stagnant surface waters and groundwater accessible by traditional wells. Programs for public and familial correct latrines have been carried out in different towns and villages.
Another project SDG 6, which started in April 2017, concerns a disadvantaged off-centre area in the city of KOUDOUGOU in Burkina Faso, concerning the construction of a trad itional well, by drilling with an electric pump, using solar panels, and building a water tower ; at the same time, fountains will be installed in correct places to supply water to the population.
SDG 4 : "Ensure universal access to quality education for all and promote lifelong learning opportunities." ABADAS other project is to build a bilingual primary school in the town of BITTOU in the South of Burkina Faso for the Peuls Ethny who only speaks its own ethnic language whereas the classical public education offers only a teaching in French, taught by teachers speaking another native language. The Peuls are traditional breeders, and their children can't attend any school. So, building a school is necessary. Electricity will be provided through photovoltaic panels. Later, the school intends to offer a Secondary Education, then, a professional teaching.
Concerning the search for sustainable solutions at the local level : SDG 9 : "Resilient infrastructure and innovation", the innovative HELIOPHOROS thermo-solar house prototype (the "HELIOPHORE house") carried out in 2016 by the architectural entrepreneurship HELIOPHOROS, as a part of the "Energy transition Law for Green Growth", which allows the preservation of the environment and the strengthening of one's energy independance, while providing access to energy at a competitive cost, has been submitted to a study of energetic performance throughout the year by daily and regular surveys. The results are conclusive, the Heliophore House is also good for the health and the welfare (the temperature is the same in all rooms and parts of the house), so that the process is now locally and regionally developped. Other Heliophore houses are being built.
Endly, concerning the 10th Global RCE Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 23-25 November 2016, "Engaging with local communities for the Sustainable Development Goals", RCE Brittany could not attend it. But many sessions were available on Skype, and it has been possible to join several of them, which was of great interest and cheerful.
Being linked to UNU and RCE Global service is useful and important because we feel part of a global network and are encouraged in our projects. Furthermore, the news and bulletins are our major source of global information : we can hear what happens elsewhere, which new conferences are organized, which are the new topics, which books are edited, we have news from other continents and it is interesting. We feel connected to a very large and extensive networks and we become "citizens of the world". That gives value to our work, and the work of our stakeholders as well, and we have a magnificent image of the work done all over the planet. That gives hope, too, and a little idea of a better world to come, with more peace, more justice and nore sharing. It's a humanitarian lesson..
