Open School of Sustainable Development (Openshkola)

Already in 2013, we recognized that there is a lack of information in Russian about sustainable development. We started the project aiming to educate Russian-speaking people around the world about sustainability, its issues, and Sustainable Development Goals. We were providing webinars in our free time and it brought around 500 people from more than 60 countries. Right now only our online course has more than 6K students, the whole audience is more than 12K. <br />
Our main goal is to attract the attention of Russian-speaking civil society and population to sustainability issues, to change lifestyle patterns, provide information that there are solutions for the critical condition of our planet. Our audience is growing fast as well as a network of partners. We inform people about sustainable practices and lifestyles that they can directly implement in their lives. We are also informed that our materials are used by teachers who attended our courses and webinars. They conduct lessons using our materials spreading the word on sustainability further to their students, transforming Russian-speaking communities by providing alternative information to the next generations. Such information is very important for the formation of civil society in countries with transition economies as Russia and other post-Soviet countries.<br />
Openshkola is a volunteer-based organization. We do not have any funding. All work is conducted by volunteer young sustainability experts. Our experience has and continues to demonstrate that even with limited resources but with proper motivation it is possible to organize nationwide and even international campaigns on SDGs.<br />
We provide online, open education for everyone who speaks Russian. The innovative nature of our project consists in the ability to keep it at low-cost and use the latest communication technologies to make our materials engaging and fun at the same time and overcome remoteness and geographical isolation in Russia and other post-Soviet countries. We use various available digital tools where each student can get deep understanding and interact with experts directly, translators-volunteers work with texts on sustainability issues, we made international sustainability literacy test available in Russian that makes sustainability education equal for everybody in the world. All materials are created with efforts of a small gifted team who are spread around the world and uses information and communication tools, achieving the maximum effect and covering as much ground as possible – educationally and geographically.