Education, Communication and Knowledge Management Group
- Communication
- Education
- Knowledge Management
—————————————————————
The Communication Programme is fairly broad based, with activities ranging from generating, documenting and disseminating information amongst the media, members and constituency, to providing desk top publishing services to IUCN’s Thematic Groups and projects. Its Urdu NCS quarterly ‘Jareeda’, presents comprehensive reports on the environment through stories, interviews and reviews. Some of the Units generic products and services have included the designing of Conservation Strategies, posters for varied international events, souvenirs, editorial and content development services for publications, development of press releases and media liaison.
With the commencement of Conservation Strategies, more opportunities for awareness raising on development issues were created for IUCN-P. Greater media interaction has resulted in the creation of a network of environmental journalists at the national level.
The Communication Programme was extensively involved in providing management support to the UNDP-funded Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP), Pakistan, an initiative that has been a trail blazer in extending the use of electronic mail and computer networks in Pakistan. This helped in placing both ‘The Way Ahead’ and the NCS Jareeda on e-mail - greatly increasing accessibility and readership. SDNPK also created a number of mailing lists, discussion groups and electronic conferences to generate awareness of and debate on sustainable development issues. After popularizing electronic information systems, its focus changed to helping organizations develop capacity for managing and sharing knowledge on sustainable development
Given the increase in and demand for communications products, a mutually beneficial Internship Programme has been initiated to develop and tap skills of young and aspiring professionals in content development, editing and design.
Some of the milestones achieved by the IUCN-P in the past have included its English quarterly ‘The Way Ahead’ and the novel initiative of the Journalists Resource Center (JRC).
Environmental Education Programme
The Education Programme aims to institutionalize environmental education into the mainstream educational curricula, by providing primary and secondary school teachers with information and educational materials, and supporting tertiary institutions in their efforts to include environmental courses in their programmes. In recent years, the Education Programme focused on the design and prototype testing of a draft curriculum for pre-service teachers, in collaboration with St. Patrick’s College of Primary Education in Karachi. Similar work is underway with the Curriculum Bureau, NWFP and the Directorate of Education, Northern Areas. The Education Programme has also been working in collaboration with the British Council and the Overseas Development Assistance (now DFID) on the design of a comprehensive programme to integrate environmental education into the Sindh Primary Education Development Programme (SPEDP).
At the tertiary level, it has been collaborating with the Department of Psychology, University of Karachi, to introduce a course on environmental psychology in the latter’s M.Sc programme, and with the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture to develop student capacity to undertake awareness building activities as part of their education.
At an overall policy development level, the Education Programme is an active member of the National Task Force on Environmental Education, instituted by the NCS Unit, and is now collaborating with the Sindh Education Department in setting up a provincial task force for incorporating environment into education at different levels.
The Education Programme continues its support to the provincial conservation strategies, incorporating environmental education into the curricula of educational institutions in the NWFP, developing operational plans for inclusion in the Balochistan and Northern Areas Force and collaborating with the IUCNP field projects to ensure that environmental education is incorporated into awareness raising programmes.
For more information - www.edu.iucnp.org
The latest addition to IUCNP’s thematic programmes, Knowledge Management became a part of the ECK Group in December 2002. The KM Unit aims to takes forward the development information work initiated by the Sustainable Development Networking Programme, with a focus on IUCNP’s programmes and projects. In this context, it is working to provide access to value added information and knowledge through the optimal use of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as well as to manage the huge amount of conservation and sustainable development knowledge generated by IUCNP. Ranging from setting up websites for various projects and themes related to the organization’s work to designing systems that could store vast amounts of information organized in ways to sort and retrieve it in user-friendly fashion, the Unit is working to set up a Knowledge Management System for IUCNP. It is also carrying out independent projects like on the ICT Assisted Tool for the Deaf (*) in Pakistan.
