Researchers from the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Education Sciences have just obtained a grant from Barcelona City Council as part of the ‘Justicia Global 2021’ grants programme, which will help to implement an educational project that seeks to empower young people as active agents in promoting global justice and integral ecology.

The project EMPREMPTA (CO)4 is directed by Mariona Graell alongside professors Sílvia Albareda and Mariana Fuentes and lecturers Maria Pujol and Salvador Vidal. Promoted jointly by the organisations Justícia i Pau and Nazaret Global Education, the project will be carried out by Sustainability and Comprehensive Education (SEI) Research Group, which is led by professor Sílvia Albareda. The initiative’s main objective is to promote a network of educational institutions and companies committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a view to generating a pluralistic movement of young people committed to global justice and integral ecology.

“We will be starting with an initial group of centres and organisations that have committed themselves to the project, with the intention of expanding progressively”, explain the researchers. Their aim is to encourage the exchange of experiences between these centres and increase spaces of reflection and debate among educational staff in order to ensure that young people make changes to their lifestyles that translate into a smaller ecological footprint and lead to greater involvement in social transformation.

The project will be carried out in two phases, each of which will last for two years. Among the centres that have already joined the initiative are the UNESCO Friends Association for Interreligious Dialogue (AUDIR), the National Young Christian Workers of Catalonia and the Islands (JUEGO), and the colleges Mare de Déu dels Àngels i Montserrat and the Càritas Diocesana in Barcelona.