Welsh Assembly's view on delivering ESDGC

The ESDGC action plan was completed in December and the new draft was put together by the 25 or so people on the ESDGC panel; the plan's not prescriptive and wants to give individual institutions opportunity to develop their own.

Strategic context includes WAG's One Wales Agenda and the driver behind One Wales One Planet. Strengths - demand for learners, recognised as good practice, evidence of delivery, stakeholder commitment. Tina Hawkins is working with the team in the Dept fo Environment Sust and Health to develop the idea of a young person's charter - could this link to the idea of the '1 Club' - people who give one percent of their time to community and environmental projects? In ESDGC, there is funding available, but not massive amounts - £150k or so.

Five aims: mainstreaming and embedding it, simplify delivery, integration with other programmes, accessibility to learning, and learner participation. Priorities include evaluation, research to define quality and indicators, web based communication tools and engagement with local authorities.

In further education, there's value in creating a Practitioner Network, and looking at potential training for practitioners, projects, materials and events etc.

There's needs to be training for trainers on how to embed this across different areas - we have literacy experts and therefore need an agreed level of expertise on how to create common standards  and a common understanding of what good looks like.

Sustainability Action in Wales

In addition to the work that we're doing with WAG on climate change and sustainability, there's a lot of other excellent activity happening, as listed below:

1.       Wales Sustainability Week

17th-23rd May 2010

The Welsh Assembly Government has announced the first Wales Sustainability Week which will take place from the 17th to 23rd May 2010; the week before the Hay Festival. Individuals, organisations and communities are invited to:

• take specific action to make Wales more sustainable;

• celebrate and promote what they are already doing;

• become part of a network of individuals, organisations and communities that works together to make Wales more sustainable.

WAG is asking that people demonstrate their enthusiasm and commitment to promoting sustainable development locally by organising Wales Sustainability Week activities.

More information:

Email: sustainable.development@wales.gsi.gov.uk.

Eng: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/sdevents0910/sustainabilityweek/?lang=en

Wel: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/sdevents0910/sustainabilityweek/?skip=1&lang=cy

2.       Hay on Earth / Sustainable Development Challenge Fund

1-4 June 2010

The Sustainable Development Challenge Fund is intended to support organisations, communities and businesses develop innovative new approaches to sustainable development in Wales.
As part of the Hay Festival, a series of workshops are to be run under the title Hay on Earth, which are intended to help develop innovative and creative approaches that help promote sustainable development. The workshops will be along the following themes:

• Tuesday 1 June - transport and accessibility

• Wednesday 2 June - agriculture and food

• Thursday 3 June - business, new goods and services

• Friday 4 June - community and homes

Each workshop will give organisations the opportunity to develop their SD project ideas. Projects submitted at the end of each workshop will be assessed by a panel. Grants up to a maximum of £10,000 will be awarded to help develop the best projects. 

More information:

Email: sustainable.development@wales.gsi.gov.uk.

Eng: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/sdevents0910/sustainabilityweek/?lang=en

Wel: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/sdevents0910/sustainabilityweek/?skip=1&lang=cy

3.       Sustainable Development Charter

1-4 June 2010

Also at the Hay Festival, WAG will launch a Sustainable Development Charter to encourage organisations in Wales to make sustainable development their central organising principle.

More information:

Email: sustainable.development@wales.gsi.gov.uk.

www.wales.gov.uk/sustainabledevelopment

4.       Community Action for Climate Change Networks

Llandudno 11/6/2010

Llandinam 14/6/2010

Newport 23/6/2010

Carmarthen 24/6/2010

The third series of highly successful Community Action for Climate Change Network events are currently being organised. Scheduled to take place in June 2010 the network events aim to help strengthen local networks and respond to the skills needs of groups and individuals working around climate change and carbon reduction in Wales.

This time around, the events will take place in Llandudno, Llandinam, Newport and Carmarthen. They are designed to strengthen local links, and will feature focused project development workshops such as Up-scaling your Project and Securing Funding, and open space opportunity to network with others around climate action.

More information:

Angharad Dalton adalton@glam.ac.uk

Usha Ladwa Thomas Usha.Ladwa-Thomas@Wales.GSI.Gov.UK

www.walescarbonfootprint.gov.uk

5.       Community Resilience – Launch of public consultation

The UK Government has launched the public consultation on the Community Resilience guidance documents as part a wider package on National Security. This includes the publication of an update to the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies.