UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development: Winners of 2018

The UNESCO-Japan Prize rewards projects that practice Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), in an innovative and exceptional way. Every year, it is awarded to three organizations or individuals from around the world.
For 2018, the winners are: the Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust from Namibia; the Let’s Do It Foundation from Estonia; and Yayasan Kalabia from Indonesia.

NaDEET was chosen for its “NaDEET Centre on NamibRand”. Located deep in the Namib desert, it offers hands-on immersion in ESD for schoolchildren, educators, parents as well as for entire community groups. Focusing on energy, waste and water, NaDEET also helps young people overcome poverty. Visitors learn first-hand about biodiversity, a sustainable lifestyle, and the balance between humans and nature. Learning means not just seeing and hearing, but doing and living. NaDEET Centre has already hosted and trained over 13 000 children and adults.

Let’s Do It is awarded for its projects “World Cleanup Day” and “Keep it Clean”. These grass-root initiatives address the global problem of mismanaged waste and stimulate social and environmental change. Local networks organize clean-ups all over the world and help communities develop long-term waste management plans. A mobile app maps waste and supports individual initiatives that educate on sustainable lifestyles. In 10 years, World Clean-up Day has evolved from a national clean-up to a word-wide movement with millions of volunteers in 150 countries.

Yayasan Kalabia wins the Prize for its programme “Environmental Education for the Heart of the Coral Triangle”. The Kalabia is a 34 metre-long ship that brings interactive marine conservation education to more than 100 remote coastal villages of West Papua. Staffed with local educators, this floating platform offers intensive education programmes to children and their communities. Through small-group lessons, field trips and games, participants acquire knowledge and appreciation of natural resources, and build responsibility to preserve the unique ecosystems around them.

Funded by the Government of Japan, the Prize supports the UNESCO Global Action Programme on ESD. The Programme and the Prize aim to incite and scale up ESD actions that transform individuals and societies.

More information: https://en.unesco.org/prize-esd/2018 #ESDprize

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