Framework

Despite the very positive achievements of environmental education in recent years, there is, undeniably, widespread environmental illiteracy among the Portuguese and low participation in initiatives related to environmental issues. But given the complexity of today's challenges to maintaining life on the planet, increasing global social inequalities and the paradoxes of sustainable development, it is no longer enough to only consider the environment.

Moreover, it is imperative to develop an ecological reading about our daily actions. Ecological, of ecology, of the Greek oikos, meaning “home”, and logos, which means “study”. That is, we need to cultivate the “study of the place where we live”, the places we inhabit, and their intimate connection with everything we do: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the water we waste, the energy we use to do all these things. What are the consequences of these huge small-scale acts? Between beliefs and habits, the contradictions of mercantile culture and consumption reproduce, are transmitted from generation to generation and, thus, conceal the impacts of our actions.

More than ever before, a large amount of information is available today. The difficulty seems to lie in having opportunities to critically discuss it and to understand its significance in our daily life. Consequently, it is urgent to create common spaces, community spaces, where we can put into dialogue what concerns us, imagine other futures and, step by step, construct them collectively, creatively mobilizing the resources that we have at the local level.

ParaDocma, of PARAdigm, of DOCumentary and DOgMA, is an initiative that brings together several groups and local organisations, an Itinerant Cinema Series that will journey through the city of Coimbra with the aim of promoting the “study of the home”, in this case, producing dialogue on pressing ecological issues in various spaces of the city of Coimbra. It is a travelling event because it intends to disseminate the associative spaces and the public spaces of the city to the population and, thus, to know the local material and immaterial resources.

This first edition of ParaDocma, focusing on Environment in Portugal and Childhood and Ecological Education, will include two debate events in May, a calendar of documentary screenings and an open-day in one of the most emblematic green spaces of the city, Jardim da Sereia.

This first edition is an initiative jointly organised by the Coimbra em Transição Association (CeT) and the CES Ecology and Society Workshop (ECOSOC), in collaboration with other local organisations.