CEIN Highlights in 2020

Thank you for the many opportunities you found this challenging year to create value in your own lives, at work and as volunteers in our communities around the world. Congratulations!

We find that the call “to build back better” is creating interest in value-creating education. As a result, we are welcoming new members from Ethiopia, Canada, Australia and Japan. Below, please learn more about the four young women in Ethiopia who joined CEIN along with their teacher, Gezu Mossissa. They see value-creating education and the Earth Charter as the keys to a more peaceful, sustainable Ethiopia and world. We’ll be introducing more of our new members in future newsletters.

Another milestone for CEIN was our participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review (UPR). https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/BasicFacts.aspx

We contributed to the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN) report beginning in the fall of 2019, and also learned from USHRN leaders how to submit our own report. CEIN’s report focused on how maintaining and modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal drains tax dollars needed for infrastructure, healthcare, and education services.

This year, we endorsed the USHRN supplemental letter regarding the human rights impact of COVID-19. Then in June, we endorsed a letter in support of the family of George Lloyd and other African-American families. This letter was introduced to the U.N. Human Rights Council by the Africa Group and resulted in a special session of the Council with testimony from the brother of George Floyd. The formal UPR hearing for the United States took place on Nov. 7, 2020.

CEIN members also celebrated the Earth Charter’s 20th anniversary in 2020. (CEIN become an official EC Partner in 2019.) We participated in Earth Charter webinars and movement calls, and made this a theme for dialogue during our June Forum. As a graduate in 2020 of the Earth Charter certificate program in Education for Sustainable Development, I learned from and with educators around the world. The course has ended, but this process continues as we encourage each other along the path of creating a more sustainable, just, and peaceful world.