What could be more gratifying than to intervene in a school that gives importance to education for development and thus offers its students a sequence of lessons on the diverse and complementary perspectives of sustainable development – social, economic and environmental? 

This is the case of the private high school Fieldgen, which has been offering a “sustainable development” option for two years in the fourth year of the technical curriculum and which invited Unity Foundation for 5 weeks to offer its various workshops to a class. 

In close collaboration with the teacher in charge, we were able to conduct five workshops aimed at deepening certain values and principles at the heart of development and exploring the means of action that the youth can mobilize on their own or in groups to bring about positive change. 

Students present the “solution tree”: they outline the causes and consequences of an identified societal challenge and next to the farmer, list some actions, attitudes and values that can help this farmer to cure the disease of the tree.

The presence of a unique teacher throughout the workshop sequence and his involvement and enthusiasm to be trained for the workshops and to support the facilitation was extremely valuable and helpful, not only for Unity Foundation to learn from this level of collaboration, but also to ensure the coherence of the course and to create links with the students.

Preparation of the various workshops with Mr Yves Kemp, teacher of the Fieldgen High School class, with facilitators from Unity Foundation and Gemmes.

Using film material, the youths explored and discussed themes through discussion, artistic expression and the development of concrete service projects for their own environment. 

The students present their artistic creation and the concepts explored through it.

More examples of solution trees created by the youth in the class.

The first three weeks were devoted to the themes of altruism, privilege, how to promote justice and how to eradicate all traces of prejudice in human relationships. These themes provided an opportunity for the youth to discuss some of the challenges they face in their daily lives and in society in general, such as harassment, racism and poverty, and to look for solutions that can be applied both at an individual and a collective level. The theme of altruism, also discussed from the perspective of sacrifice, touched the students very much and many of them expressed the desire to discuss this theme further in the future. Finally, a rhythmic song concluded the session with the phrase: “He indeed, is a man who today, dedicateh himself to the service of the entire human race”. Watch the video!

The last two weeks were devoted to the themes of empathy and responsibility: how the feeling and capacity for empathy can serve as a source of inspiration and motivation to carry out projects for social betterment on any scale. How can we reconcile ourselves with the notion of responsibility and realize the impact that everyone can have by identifying their abilities and talents and imagining how these could contribute to the reduction of social tensions? Receptive to empathy and having a rather positive approach to the notion of responsibility, the discussions with the youth were rich and meaningful and led to practical actions by the youth, who developed various projects of which the pictures below give an overview. The systematic integration of interactive games and artistic expression during the sessions facilitated the understanding and appropriation of the principles and enabled the youth to express themselves freely. 

Identification by the youth of a challenge that particularly affects them (blue square), the ways in which they can solve this problem (green square) and the talents and abilities they possess to contribute to the advancement of their goals for change, at the local level (orange square).

The final evaluations reflect the students’ appreciation of the workshops and offer a rich perspective on the continuity and improvement of our workshops. Below are some of the student responses to the question, “How can you become an active agent of positive change?”:

A big thank you to Fieldgen Private High School for hosting and trusting us, and especially Mrs. Ruffini for coordinating and Mr. Kemp for supporting our programme so well! See you soon!