Can we look for inspiration of creating a sustainable mindset by looking at intercultural training tools? That was one of the questions I set out to answer in my session at the SIETAR Congress in Dublin at the end of May.
The ProfESus Erasmus+ project is aimed at those who train hospitality skills in small-scale organisations such as farm-based tourism, care home canteens and small cafes and restaurants. How can trainers take time out from instructing their students in cooking, cleaning, energy management and waste disposal to ensure that these skills are carried out in a sustainable way?
In my session I started by giving a bit of background about what sustainability covers and especially to the work of the International Federation of Home Economics, IFHE which was the main driver organisation behind the formation of the project.
In our work so far it looks as though there is a great deal of overlap between the Savoirs of intercultural competence and the Learnings as proposed by UNECE in their competency framework for education for sustainablity.
I also looked at what we can learn from the new Australian school curriculum which makes both intercultural understanding and sustainability part of their curriculum.
And finally, of the 5 major areas of a sustainable mindset, futures thinking, strategic thinking, systems thinking, collaboration and values thinking, I took a look at how we could tackle the pedgagogy of promoting values thinking since values lie behind intercultural understanding too.
PS The latest Absolutely Intercultural podcast show features three other people I met at the SIETAR Congress. Listen below.
