Letter from the future
This activity encourages student/client’s to think about their future and what it may look like, promoting their knowledge about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – proposed by the United Nations), and their awareness of their importance in relation to their life goals.
To use this activity it will be important to consider if the student/client is prepared to go beyond their own needs and problems at the time and think about the problems of the world. It will not make sense to propose this kind of activity to someone who is concerned with financial issues, for example, and daily survival. Always take care not to generate increased challenges for the client when selecting one of these activities.
Inspiration for the tool
This activity was created by the Portuguese innovation factory, inspired by therapeutic letter writing and narrative approaches.
Rationale: Why is this needed?
This activity provides a framework for the introduction of content on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within an individual session of vocational/career counselling, promoting learning on the issue, while promoting the clients’ reflection on the relationship between the SDGs and their own values, personal and career goals, facilitating the projection into the future.
Objectives
By the end of the session, the participant will:
- Know the SDG’s;
- Be more motivated to learn about sustainability and understand it
- Be more prepared to think and discover creative ways in which their life and life goals can contribute to sustainability
Resources needed
SDGs presentation, colourful cardboards (1 colour for each SDG), pens.
Online Materials on the SDGs:
https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/sdg-educational-programme
https://stairwaytosdg.eu/images/UNESCO_Education_for_Sustainable_Development_Goals_ENG.pdf
Activities
Setup: Ask the student/client to identify the problems and challenges they see in the contemporary world
Step 1: Present and explain the SDGs
Step 2: Ask the student/client to relate the problem/challenges they have identified with the SDG’s presented and to identify the SDGs that interest them the most
Step 3: Ask the student/client to write a letter (either during the session or at home), assuming they are their “future self” (in three or five years), explaining to their “current self” what they have done to implement actions to address the SDGs with which they have identified with.
Extension activities
In the following session analyse and explore the letter to promote reflection on how the students/clients see themselves in the future, what life and career decisions they project on the future, what kind of experiences they imagine themselves to have, and what their aims and activities are in relation to the SDGs.
If this activity is being implemented in a group, the result of step 2 can be done through more creative ways (e.g., make a collage to represent the problem/challenges they have identified with the SDG’s and to present the SDGs that interest them the most).
Reflections/Consolidation of learning
Examples of exploration questions for the subsequent session are:
- Before you had written this letter, had you imagined yourself to be doing X in three or five years?
- What values led you to the choices you have made?
- How different is this person from the future from your current self?
- What has happened in your life to lead you up to this point?
- Has this activity helped you project into the future?
- Considering this, what are your current personal and career goals?
- And what role do the SDGs play in those goals?
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