An online programme to train sustainability coordinators in Jesuit schools and institutes within the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific has been launched.
The Sustainability Coordinator Training Programme was developed as a response to the Jesuit mission on ecology as described in General Congregation 35. It will enable better green campus management, in line with the JCAP agenda of “Growing a Green Campus”, by strengthening the capacity of school managers in waste auditing and baseline data development, engineering, waste management, organization and system management, and carbon footprint auditing.
An initial framework was developed by three Jesuit institutes – Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) in the Philippines in cooperation with Sanata Dharma University and Saint Michael’s Technical College-ATMI in Indonesia.
The programme is highly interactive and aims to engage participants on how they may proceed ecologically in an Ignatian way. The training materials and reflection papers are oriented towards a process to engage staff and share learnings and experiences.
The course modules are spread over a year, and offered through a mix of distance learning, “face-to-face” learning, and practical exercises or “home-institute” learning. They are grouped according to themes. Theme 1 focuses on living out a way of green campus management; theme 2 focuses on understanding the broader context of green campus management, including comprehensive learning of the relations of on-campus production and consumption to the socio-political and “watersheds” to which it is connected; and theme 3 seeks to integrate national and international certification and processes on environmental management.
“The programme seeks to strengthen our institutional vision on a practical level and build the scientific, social and spiritual capacity for Reconciliation with Creation,” said Fr Pedro Walpole SJ, JCAP Coordinator for Reconciliation with Creation and ESSC’s Director of Research.
It is hoped that by the end of the programme, participants have gained both the science-and faith-based knowledge for broader understanding of the green campus management.
Jesuit schools are encouraged to appoint Sustainability Coordinators to ensure that “Reconciliation with Creation” is a key focus within the life of every school. These coordinators are expected to work collaboratively with other key people in their school to animate the vision, provide direction for ways that this vision may be enacted amongst all constituents, and assist with the coordination and implementation of the vision across the school community.
To date, seven people from Australia, one from Cambodia and four from China have been named as Sustainability Coordinators, and three of them have registered for the training programme.
Although the programme is now focussed on Jesuit institutions, schools, and universities in Asia Pacific, “to get our house in order” as Fr Walpole says, the intent is to eventually contribute to broader engagement on environmental management and systems in society.
“In cleaning up our own ‘backyard’ so to speak, we then have the basis and opportunity to share with others and engage in the broader scope of responsibility, from school to the city dumpsite and from water use to watershed adoption,” explained Fr Walpole.
For more information on the Sustainability Coordinator Training Programme, go to http://sustainabilitycoursejcap.essc.org.ph.