Communication Activities From 2006 Onwards

 Creating a network of mediating people/organisations to disseminate the Charter process on a European scale

This will facilitate disseminating information on the Charter, pinpointing people and organisations that can contribute with experiences, disseminating these experiences and, possibly later, as a second stage (from 2006), set up concrete projects in collaboration with members of this team. We will ensure there is a geographic balance within this network, which will mean targeting Northern European countries, Scandinavian countries and the Balkans as a priority. Two actions will be the mainstay of this process…as presented below.

Once the initial core of this team is created, there will need to be network organisation work: setting up a list of network members with a short description of their activities and circulating this list to everyone in the network, organising regular exchanges by e-mail (i.e. an informative report sent by coordinators, B. Nguyen and Y. Ziaka, once a month going over the work’s progress and bringing together information/proposals/comments sent in by network members), planning and organising meetings with network members at different events (conferences, etc.) etc.

 Developing easy-access material for specific target groups To develop easy-access material – a small book or cartoon, we can give the example of a consumer’s environmental responsibility, highlighting the relation between the complexity of environmental questions and responsibility.

The presentation’s starting point could be a question like “why am I responsible for the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest when I eat a hamburger I bought at McDonalds?” We could give other examples like this one to illustrate how analysing the complexity of environmental questions compels one into thinking about one’s own individual/collective (as a member of a social group) responsibility.

If it is to be a book, it could begin with a “theoretical” section / an introduction to complexity for educators/communicators themselves so they understand why they have a share of responsibility. This relation could be illustrated with conceptual maps. The book could then have illustrations, presenting how these notions can be conveyed in educative contexts (at school or elsewhere, i.e. Greenpeace’s actions in trying to raise consumer awareness and promote “responsible consumption” for tropical wood etc.)

 Setting up a discussion forum on the concept of responsibility

This forum would be open to educators/NGO members/specific socio-professional groups as well as the general public. The forum would have an educational role as such, that is, a person would gain a certain awareness about a question through participating in the forum. The goal will be to “work in an educational way on the concept of responsibility, using the internet as a tool”.

We could begin with the above-mentioned questions such as “why am I responsible for the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest…” sent by coordinators, with introductory texts on such and such subject written by competent persons, and have an open discussion, run by coordinators. Another objective would be to begin a discussion based around discovering experiences that point towards assuming responsibility (from schoolchildren cleaning the beaches every year in Greece to the actions of NGO’s on global warming).

Once the discussion is finished (i.e. after 6-8 months), we would need to make a summary, edit it and put it on the website.