LEARNING WITH ISLANDS 1

The ‘Small Islands Voice’ initiative, (SIV) started in 2002 and was focused on small island developing states and islands with other affiliations in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific regions. The aims were to combine new information and communication technologies with print, radio, television and other media for LEARNING WITH ISLANDS’ (LWI)’. The objective was to develop and implement a global circular 2030 economy incorporating the behavioral topics of placemaking, belonging and sustainability, which define biocultural nativeness (Daniel Lewis).

Educational self-organisation was promoted by SIV for the effective participation of the general public in the local processes of sustainable development. The term self-organization refers to the ways in which individuals organize their communal behavior to create global order by interactions amongst themselves rather than through external intervention or instruction. In a rapidly changing world people learn with islands not about islands. Now, the rapid transition towards a global circular economy (CE) entails transformative and system-wide changes, implying involvement, alignment, and cooperation between all stakeholders in all places at all levels. The practical theme is ‘MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME’ (MYAH) where the local environment is interrogated to highlight the good things and improve those that are bad.

A ‘SMALL ISLAND PEDAGOGY’ (SIP), for LWI, which integrates SIV, and MAYAH with CE, is key because it imparts a way of knowing which affects what we come to know and apply in our day to day lives.