In the middle of the XI SEMANA Leaders for Education Summit (CLE), experts analyzed the situation of environmental education in Colombia and the world from the current context of global crisis. During the second conversation of one of the most important educational events in the country, three leaders from different organizations agreed on the need to train more young professionals in academic programs focused on sustainability and the environment.
According to Henny Margot Santiago Villa, Sustainability Coordinator at the UDCA University of Applied and Environmental Sciences, Many young people in Colombia are leaving aside environmental careers. This, according to her, has an impact on a “crisis of the human species”, which is experienced today and which must be urgently addressed, not only from the academy, but from different fronts.
Likewise, it generated the following question that must be worked on by the educational system: “How do we responsibly train more professionals with an environmental or sustainability seal?”
Environmental awareness
For her part, Marcela Fernández, founder of Cumbres Blancas and one of the 100 most influential women in the world, said: “We do not know the true beauty that we have on the planet”, which is related to the lack of interest of many young people in the study of environmental sciences..
However, Fernández stressed that, for her, “it is up to children to begin to have that environmental awareness,” highlighting the case of Josué, an 11-year-old boy, son of the director of Cumbres Blancas, who for six years has become a brand ambassador since he discovered how the glacier crisis would affect his future.
Likewise, she assured that she herself, from the age of 14, began to be passionate about environmental issues and the care of glaciers when she represented her educational institution in Norway with a water conservation project.
“He has been part of the team, he was in Mexico and it is not the same as me talking to you as an 11-year-old boy talking to you about this. His aspiration is to be like his father, and it has been a great motivation. Today we are working on a project called biblio-paramos and the idea is to have libraries and to build schools in the moors and rural areas, where there are spaces for dialogue and communication; Even teachers can be people from the community,” he added.
Regarding the importance of spaces for conversation and listening to great experts in the care of glaciers and the entire planet, Fernández stated that it is crucial to “understand and listen to those voices and give them their place.”
Train environmental leaders
Meanwhile, Luis Camargo, founder and director of the Organization for Environmental Protection and Education (OpEPA), stressed the urgency of forming “future good ancestors” who contribute to saving the planet.
“I believe that knowledge is very important, but we must also dismantle that knowledge is the only important thing; we have to know, we have to feel and we have to do. That is, think with the mind, with the heart and with the hands, because if we do not lead from three o’clock we will fall short and it is time to act. Maybe for the glaciers it may be late, but for the earth it is not late because it has resilience and a capacity for self-healing and self-creation,” said Camargo.
And he added: “We have to start leading how ecosystems and nature lead, in an integrated way (…) and from the leadership we all work together to transform what we have to transform and we can create cultures of well-being, cultures of care and give life on our planet a chance.”
