Agenda 2030 / Agenda 21

In our charitable organisation, experts on educational matters and coaches from the Brandenburg and Berlin area are working on the following topics:

• adult and youth education in politics (development policy, ecology, development of democracy, civic participation, questions concerning human rights, migration, etc.)
• intercultural communication
• mediation and conflict management, mediation training and parental training
• organisation counselling
• anti-discrimination training
• study travels focusing on political and cultural matters and related to natural history in (Eastern) Germany and Eastern Europe

In terms of language and culture, we have gathered experiences and established contacts particularly with (Southeastern) Europe, Turkey, the Arab States, Israel, Latin America and Africa.

The Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Communication was founded in 1996. Today, it is part of the Faculty of Environmental Technology at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The institute's academic staff carries out research, teaching, and knowledge-transfer activities related to environment and sustainability communication. Scientific analysis, theory elaboration, and concept development are the key components of all research projects carried out at this institute. Their objective is to promote the development of competencies at the individual, institutional, and collective levels in order to create a future based on the principle of sustainability. In the autumn of 2005, this institute was awarded the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development. The Chair's goal is to integrate the principle of sustainability into teaching activities and strengthen the institute's international orientation by establishing new cooperative ventures.

The Open School 21 offers students in and around Hamburg (Germany) a broad program for global education. It aims to raise their awareness of global correlations and realities. At the same time concrete options for action are created for and together with students that enable them to make a self-determined contribution to a sustainable development and more global justice. In the Open School there is the experience that one can make an important contribution to justice, environmental protection, peacekeeping as well as poverty reduction by oneself and that success in these areas is possible.

Open School 21 offers about 40 different workshops, project days, city walks and harbor tours on request. Topics of the Open School are globalization, human rights, poverty reduction, world agricultural trade, climatic change, flight and migration, fair trade, sustainable
consumption, child labor, colonial history as well as living conditions and environments in different countries.

The program of The Open School 21 is directed to school students from every grade and school form. The activities take place at the harbor, in different parts of the city, in the education center “Werkstatt 3” or in one’s own school.

The events are held by self-employed experts with abroad and migration experiences that come from the field of development cooperation, arts and science. For teachers, the Open School 21 offers consultation for global education, support for day-projects as well as materials for preparation and follow-up of events.

Arche noVa is an aid organisation that sets up humanitarian aid projects (Syrien, Irak, Libanon, Ukraine), development cooperation projects (Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippinen, Uganda, Äthiopien, Somalia, Mali, Kenia) as well as development education in the form of school projects on topics such as ‘water’, ‘world trade and globalisation’, ‘(international) conflicts’ and ‘humanitarian aid’.

The field of work environment and development in the LIS supports schools the construction of a programme/of profile for the purposes of the education for sustainable development.

The Landeszentrale für Umweltaufklärung Rheinland-Pfalz is an institution founded by the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It reports directly to the Minister of the Environment and is based in the ministry responsible for the environment and forestry in Mainz. The national centre was founded by a cabinet decision on 1 February 1990. Its objective and task are to inform the population about environmental concerns and to motivate them to learn an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. The crux of the matter is the following: We have already been living beyond our means for a long time. We live at the cost of following generations. And, still, we refuse all too easily to believe that terms like ‘climate catastrophe’ and ‘ozone hole’ are real threats. We continue to live as if the supplies of natural resources and energy sources were inexhaustible, as if water, soil and the atmosphere are able to indefinitely absorb toxic substances. However, an acceleration of this development is foreseeable. About 20 percent of the global population use approximately 80 percent of the resources for themselves and are responsible for the corresponding share of the environmental damage. When the remaining 80 percent of the global population follow (why shouldn’t they?), the collapse of the system ‘earth’ will not be long in coming. We have no choice but to introduce sustainable development that brings economic and social interests worldwide in accordance with each other. It does not help much, though, to point a finger at ‘the others’, the industry or the government. It is up to all of us. The first step towards change is a change of (environmental) thinking, which is what the LZU demands. And everyone has to participate.