Openshkola, Russia

Project name: Openshkola

Project location: It is an international online project based in Russia.
Covered countries: Armenia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Estonia; Georgia; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Latvia; Russian Federation; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Ukraine; Uzbekistan and all Russian-speaking people around the world

Website: http://www.openshkola.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/openshkola/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/openshkola/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/openshkola

Project description:

Open School of Sustainable Development (http://www.openshkola.org/en), or Openshkola, is an initiative developed by two young womеn from Russia in beginning of 2013 in order to promote ideas of sustainable development among Russian-speaking communities. The initiative was honored by SDSN Youth as one of “50 game-changing projects in sustainable development led by young people” around the world. This approach uses innovative technologies and tools to make education in sustainability affordable and accessible to people and overcome remoteness and geographical isolation in Russia and other post-Soviet countries.

Goal and purpose of the project:

In Russia and other post-Soviet countries, understanding of sustainability is limited. The goal of the project is to spread ideas of sustainable development as a concept for the further development of society in Russia and the world community as a whole.

We provide online education about it in Russian by

1. creating of MOOCs: the first online course was released in 2013. In the beginning of 2016, the first full-length MOOC was released with partnership MOOC platform Stepik.org, more than 1500 people joined the course;
2. organizing monthly webinars on sustainability topics: more than open free 30 webinars were provided. The recordings of most recent webinars are available at our youtube channel;
3. translating MOOCs of SDG Academy and SDSN into Russian: about 200 Russian-speaking students translated parts of 3 MOOCs and got appreciation letters from SDSN;
4. adapting sustainability literacy test ‘Sulitest’ for Russia and other post-Soviet countries;
5. conduction public speaking events if possible.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

Open School of Sustainable Development functions as youth volunteer-based organization. Currently, it has 14 active members who are mainly students at Russian universities; all members are younger than 32 years old. We all want that Russia and Russian-speaking countries are not left behind in Agenda 2030's achievement. That is why we devote our free time for creating educational materials and publications. We think it is necessary to deliver information to everyone who wants to know more and be a responsible inhabitant of the planet Earth or simply a Global citizen.
 

Use of prize money:

The prize could provide additional opportunities for the Open School of Sustainable Development:
Create more content. The project aims to create one MOOC in every six month. The next MOOC on SDGs will be created specifically for Russian and post-soviet reality. It needs funding. The MOOC will include both videos and interviews delivered by local and international experts. Created MOOC will be spread around the Russian-speaking community with the help of well-established partners (UN agencies, AIESEC, local environmental NGOs, and academic community). Project with a partnership of the largest environmental Russian NGO ECA plans to create teaching materials on sustainability for Russian-speaking middle school teachers. Project plans to continue partnerships on MOOC translations, webinars and public speaking.

We could reach a bigger audience. We want knowledge to be accessible for everybody. The Prize would allow us to convey the ideas of sustainable development and attract attention even more.

Upgrade the webpage and use more digital tools. We try to make the project convenient and fun for our students.