#EnvironmentMatters
Environmental Citizenship and Sustainable Development: Today’s Choices, Tomorrow’s Bets
The opening session began with a speech of the workshop manager Dr.Mustafa Helweh and a welcome speech by the President of "Tammouz" Center, Dr. Adonis El Akra, followed by the speech of M.O.E., a welcome speech by Mr. Kristof Duwaerts, Resident Representative of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Jordan, as well as a speech by its representative in Lebanon, Mr. Tony Ghorayeb about the mission and the goals of the HSS, and the speech of the workshop coordinator Dr. Ali Khalifeh.
The workshop included six sessions, which focused on the approach to the problem presented in its various aspects and aimed to identify the link between environmental citizenship and economic and political choices, raise environmental awareness through the expansion of the uses of digital space and social communication, provide Education for Environmental Citizenship for students and empower citizens to exercise their environmental rights and duties, as well as to identify the underlying structural causes of environmental degradation and environmental problems.
Centre Tammouz
Centre Tammouz
The Workshop has enabled the participants to analyse and evaluate the information and advices given and has encouraged them to engage in dialogue and to identify the problems of Lebanese Political Parties and the needs to change their structures and ways of working. It has also provided them with international tools to fight against parties’ corruption, and has offered them opportunities to broaden their experience and develop their personal skills to reach their goals.
By the end of the workshop, the participants came out with a set of recommendations which concentrated on:
- Reconsidering the concept of democracy based on the opinion of the majority in dealing with environmental issues and its dilemmas.
- Emphasizing the role of education on citizenship, especially environmental citizenship, since the early education stage, and making it a daily behavior and a part of the student's daily life.
- Introducing environmental issues through various educational materials.
- Spreading environmental awareness through visual, audio and written media, and enhancing the role of digital campaigns that have proven effective in many situations of the struggle for the environment.
- Strengthening the role of environmental platforms, environment observatories, and environmental clubs to consolidate environmental culture and environmental ethics among students at various stages of education
- Calling on the Ministry of Education in Lebanon to reverse the step that led to the reduction of environmental education axes for middle school classes.