Representatives from 18 Sacred Heart Schools from 10 countries came together in February to share their hopes, actions and priorities for healing our wounded world. Hosted online by the RSCJ International Team and helped by our translators, the students and their teachers heard from a variety of speakers: Cynthia Caruana from EKO Schools Malta, two interns, Sasha Amelang and Lisabeth Kelly, who work with the Society’s NGO office at the United Nations, told us of their deep commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly on gender. Then two current students, Helene Szauer and Melissa Plunger from Sacre Coeur Vienna explained how they grounded their sustainability actions in research and awareness.
All this fascinating input, and the preparation work beforehand by students and staff, resulted in two excellent break out sessions where students shared the projects that had already taken place in their schools, discussed with each other which SDGs were, in their opinion, the most important for them and for the world and finally what would be their priorities for action in the future. For the final section of the conference, we invited a representative from each of the breakout groups to share one point from their discussions. Each one reported the ideas, concerns and actions that they had shared with each other. The students were most articulate and convincing in their feedback. Many spoke fluently in a second language.
There will be follow up to this conference with more opportunities online for our schools to share their enthusiasm, commitment and their determination to "Take those Steps to Heal our World".
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