About

This dynamic, interactive capacity-building session positions well-being, understood as individual, collective, and planetary flourishing, as a practical entry point for strengthening climate mitigation and adaptation action. Combining nature-connection exercises, live-guided drumming group work, climate-rap, and visual storytelling on Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness, it equips participants with experiential methods for fostering agency, inclusion, coherence and sustained engagement in climate action.

Importance of the event in terms of capacity-building for climate action and relevance for the Hub: capacity-building for climate action requires understanding of deep interconnectedness between human and planetary well-being. The final goal of climate action is to sustain or improve the well-being of the planet through mitigation and to re-build the well-being of individuals and communities affected by climate impacts through adaptation. Creative methods on which our session is built upon enhance the ability to learn, flourish and cooperate in order to find out-of-the-box solutions necessary for promoting climate action.
 

Objectives

The session aims to achieve the following objectives:

• To strengthen participants’ understanding of the interdependence between human and planetary well-being and the relevance of well-being for fostering agency, motivation, and sustained engagement in climate mitigation and adaptation.
   
• To build practical capabilities to apply artistic and embodied methods,including nature-connection exercises, rhythm-based collaboration, and climate-rap, to foster group cohesion, creativity, and collective expression of climate concerns.
   
• To showcase lessons from the 1^st UNU “Well-being Alliance” workshop in Bhutan through visual storytelling, illustrating how well-being-centered approaches can inform climate action, community engagement, and sustainable development practice.
   

This session will be guided by Dr. Yauheniya Shershunovich (UNU-EHS) & Prof. Xiaomeng Shen (UNU-EHS)

Relevant Links:

• https://unu.edu/news/bhutan-workshop-lays-groundwork-well-being-alliance-research-and-policy
• https://unu.edu/ehs/article/field-yauheniya-shershunovich-measuring-what-matters-bhutan-world