CATHOLIC INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

In view of the coming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg this year, it was decided to give special emphasis to the issues of environmental justice in workshops for religious educators in Catholic primary schools around the country.

Environmental justice has a place in the Catholic school’s Religious Education curriculum, being incorporated in the broader process called Education in Structural Morality, or in perhaps more familiar terms, Education in Social Justice. Twenty-five workshops in 8 provinces brought together around 750 teachers. Material, mostly in the form of lesson plans, was chosen from a new curriculum, Lifebound in order to draw out discussion and, at the same time, to model good teaching practice. Useful resources like A Rainbow Over the Land, Save Our Future, and Saving Our World were on sale.

In order to provide some follow-up to these workshops a bimonthly newsletter offered teachers material for reflection, drawn from both Catholic and ecumenical statements preparing for the Summit. Resources were reviewed, and schools were linked with various environmental projects. A Catholic school in Gauteng, Michael Rua, was, as a result, runner-up in the Gauteng Clean Schools project, Bontle ke Botho.

As an organisation, the Catholic Institute of Education marked the Summit with a special edition of Catholic Education News. Employees of the Institute also contributed towards a more friendly work environment by sponsoring flower boxes outside the offices.

In conjunction with St Augustine College, Victory Park, and the SACBC Environmental Justice Desk, the Catholic Institute of Education facilitated a lecture series during the Summit to emphasise the spiritual dimension of sustainable development. The lectures dealt with various perspectives on creation spirituality.

Paul Faller, October 2002