Earth Charter for ecoliteracy and ESD – now in Irish / An Gaeilge

NEWS FROM OUR EARTH CHARTER COURSE

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO SHARE THAT THE EARTH CHARTER IS NOW AVAILABLE IN IRISH / AN GAEILGE

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Over recent years, our learners and ourselves have realised the immense depth of the peoples’ Earth Charter (2000), as it is imbued with contributions, research and interpretations from many diverse thinkers, ethicists, educators, activists, theologians, scientists, business leaders and creative people.  

As a foundational set of accessible, universal social and environmental principles, UNESCO has endorsed The Earth Charter as an ethical framework to foster ecological thinking and to guide all citizens’ actions for a thriving, equitable, sustainable and more peaceful world. Thus as an instrument for values education it overcomes superficial, siloed actions and greenwashing. Importantly, UNESCO recognises the Earth Charter is essential to guide integrated global efforts towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Over time, we also became aware that the Earth Charter when it is translated, is powerfully relevant for inclusive community learning – it has already been translated into 65 languages! And there is more. When other countries have translated the Earth Charter, some have seen their storytellers, folktale scholars, poets and writers connect the ecological wisdom of old local stories to Earth Charter principles. Such translations and creative interpretations thus make the Earth Charter sing. The Earth Charter thus has much social power to engage people in a just transition, well beyond less motivating scientific facts, and dry government policy or corporate PR spin.

So I’m delighted to share that we have the Earth Charter now translated into Irish / An Gaeilge.

We are immensely grateful to Scotland-based, Kilkenny-born Gaeilgeoir and painter Phoebe Cope who has been on many of our courses and translated the Earth Charter and the children’s Earth Charter with such knowledge and passion. I know people who have been learning with us are already interested in these translations. Thank you so much, Phoebe (see Phoebe’s paintings and translation work here)

Painter and Gaeilgeoir Phoebe with her children – Phoebe has extensively translated all aspects of the childrens’ Little Earth Charter which includes children’s activities, pledges, and a song.

Phoebe also shared a wonderful vibrant painting that depicts her love for her homeplace for our article below that was shared last week in the Irish Dept. of Education’s ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) enewsletter. ESD is the recent shift in global learning toward a just sustainable era and the Department has just published ESD strategy for the entire education sector.

So, in a small way, we are beginning to alert many teachers and art educators across Ireland about the value of the Earth Charter to engage learners and envision whole-of-school and whole-of-sector change.

The Irish Translations can be downloaded from our new ‘Earth Charter’ tab in our navigation bar). See the following pages:

• Earth Charter’s 16 main principles in Irish /An Gaeilge; and
• 65 translations of the Earth Charter in other languages from the main Earth Charter website (the Earth Charter is translated into Ukrainian and many African languages if you are working with these communities); and the
• children’s Little Earth Charter in Irish / An Gailege (several artists on our courses have already found the Little Earth Charter’s words, activities, pledges and song a rich resource on key ecological ideas for school art residences, art education outreach. 

The article we submitted for the Irish Department of Education’s December 2022 ESD enewsletter: