UN-Habitat is the United Nations programme working towards a better urban future. Its mission is to promote socially and environmentally sustainable human settlements development and the achievement of adequate shelter for all. Among others, UN-Habitat is custodian agency of the Sustainable Development Goals target 11.6 (by 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management).
In order to tackle municipal waste management issues, UN-Habitat launched two initiatives: African Clean Cities Platform (ACCP) and Waste Wise Cities Campaign (WWCC), which are regional and global waste management initiatives focusing on 4 key action areas: Waste Data & Monitoring; Knowledge & Good practices Sharing; Advocacy & Education; Project Finance & Bankability Support.
Education is critical to induce behavioural change towards sustainable and appropriate waste and resource management in our daily life. Children are the first entry point to foster a 5Rs culture (Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) at home and in the society, as they can influence their families now and are the future generation. ACCP and WWCC are looking at the educational dimension of waste management, wishing to mainstream acquisition of waste literacy at pre-primary and primary schools as well as higher education institutions.
UN-Habitat is calling for you to share innovative educational activities and best practices for child and youth education that can be replicated in schools across the world.
10 innovative educational programmes for each primary and higher education respectively will be selected and promoted, by compiling them in a leaflet and implementing them through ACCP and WWCC networks.
Who: Everyone who is interested and working in formal and non-formal education with special focus on waste / resource management.
What: Innovative educational programmes, activities, materials, etc. which have a great impact on waste education towards children’s behavioural change. The submissions should support the 5Rs and other waste/resource management concepts.
Why: Waste education should not be limited to knowledge acquisition but needs to be practiced through experiential learning. Additionally, it can be embedded into school curricula including extracurricular activities, not limited to social and/or science subjects.
At the same time, 5Rs education cannot not be done as one event. It requires long-term ongoing education which applies a coherent implementation with an incremental target, for example;
- Interest – to show concern about littering.
- Understanding – to learn where your waste ends up and how it is disposed.
- Action – to learn how to separate waste
Outcome: The best 20 submissions will be published and showcased on ACCP’s and WWCC’s websites and compiled in a leaflet on good practices. Other relevant submissions will be published on UN-Habitat’s website and shared through ACCP and WWCC networks.
Criteria:
- Innovative
- Potential to provide effective learnings on waste / resource management.
- Contents in relation to school and daily life
- Replicable and/or Scalable
- Smart and/or technological based (advantageous)
How to submit:
Please send the application by 30 of April 2020 to wastewisecities@un.org
Indicative Timeline:
- Deadline: 30th April 2020
- Selection and Communication: May - June 2020
- Publish selected programmes: June -July 2020
Other:
For more information and questions please contact: Ms. Shiho Jinno – jinno.shiho@un.org