Earlier this year, I received a scholarship from Inclusive Leadership to undergo Earth Charter?s ?Leadership, Sustainability, and Ethics? training for young leaders. The training had lots of impact on my leadership and advocacy path. It introduced me to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), new ways of thinking, and a more robust approach towards achieving the SDGs and even beyond that towards a more peaceful and sustainable future.

As part of the training, participants organized individual workshops to expand the knowledge on the concepts of the programme. I organized my workshop in Kumasi - Ghana on the 22^nd of March under the theme ?Building Earth Leaders Today.?

I had a group of 25 people from 11 countries and from different backgrounds. The event started with introductions and we discussed ESD. Only 1 person out of the 25 had experienced Education for Sustainable Development. This emphasized on the need for ESD. We deliberated and shared several views on how to promote ESD. The discussion led us to Leadership (Earth Leaders) and Ethics. Participants named Osama Bin Laden as a successful leader (capable of driving people to follow his vision) but agreed that our planet don't need such leaders but Earth Leaders – leaders who are ethical, concerned about the present and the future. I then led the team to dive into ethics and moved on to critical and system thinking.

We watched a video on system thinking – which illustrated how the earth is all merged together and that every single decision affects a much larger system. Following that, participants were grouped into five (5 groups of 5). Each group selected one local problem in their home country/community and tasked another group to use system thinking to provide a solution to the problem.  At the end, we had beautiful solution to global issues such as terrorism, water scarcity and food insecurity, inequalities, etc.

A presentation on the workshop ?ESD, Earth Leadership, and System Thinking? can be found here: https://amponsem.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/leadership-sustainability-and-ethics-workshop-2017-slides.pptx

The debrief section was another great moment for me to hear what participants had learned. About 70% of feedback response showed that participants had no knowledge about ESD, 50% mentioned that they have heard about system thinking but had no understanding to it, 90% of participants pledge to promote ESD and to adopt ethical leadership towards sustainable development.