KEYS aimed to link three European institutions from Portugal, The Netherlands and Germany working with the Earth Charter. KEYS partners seeked to exchange on concepts for Education for Sustainable Development inspired by the Earth Charter. The eduction formats shall provide holistic and motivating approaches to meet the growing insecurity and frustration within the European youth due to global crisis and offer practical options for action and open rooms for conscious change towards global sustainability.
We initiated the KEYS project in response to the growing global crises and challenges that societies are facing, which have become particularly evident in recent years. The need for a holistic educational approach is critical—one that not only informs but also engages participants on multiple levels, fostering the development of alternative solutions and motivating action. The Earth Charter (EC), a UNESCO recognized declaration, offers a powerful framework with its holistic, ethically grounded, and creative approach for sustainable development. We aimed to explore how the Earth Charter principles could provide solution-oriented, motivating approaches to help youth navigate these complex issues and find ways to contribute to a more sustainable, peaceful, and just world. Through this project, we sought to bring together European institutions working with the EC in youth education to exchange successful examples of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) concepts. By doing so, we aimed to evaluate how newly acquired knowledge and methods could be integrated into our organizational work, enhancing our capacity to address the urgent needs for transformative education in the face of ongoing global challenges.