Education, Community Engagement and Sustainable Development

Author(s):  
Nicole Blum
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract This workshop is dedicated on SDGs in the focus of environmental and health issues, as very important and actual topic. One of the characteristics of today's societies is the significant availability of modern technologies. Over 5 billion (about 67%) people have a cellphone today. More than 4.5 billion people worldwide use the Internet, close to 60% of the total population. At the same time, one third of the people in the world does not have access to safe drinking water and half of the population does not have access to safe sanitation. The WHO at UN warns of severe inequalities in access to water and hygiene. Air, essential to life, is a leading risk due to ubiquitous pollution and contributes to the global disease burden (7 million deaths per year). Air pollution is a consequence of traffic and industry, but also of demographic trends and other human activities. Food availability reflects global inequality, famine eradication being one of the SDGs. The WHO warns of the urgency. As technology progresses, social inequality grows, the gap widens, and the environment continues to suffer. Furthermore, the social environment in societies is “ruffled” and does not appear to be beneficial toward well-being. New inequalities are emerging in the availability of technology, climate change, education. The achievement reports on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also point out to the need of reviewing individual indicators. According to the Sustainable Development Agenda, one of the goals is to reduce inequalities, and environmental health is faced by several specific goals. The Global Burden of Disease is the most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. It is the product of a global research collaborative and quantifies the impact of hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in countries around the world. This workshop will also discuss Urban Health as a Complex System in the light of SDGs. Climate Change, Public Health impacts and the role of the new digital technologies is also important topic which is contributing to SDG3, improving health, to SDG4, allowing to provide distance health education at relatively low cost and to SDG 13, by reducing the CO2 footprint. Community Engagement can both empower vulnerable populations (so reducing inequalities) and identify the prior environmental issues to be addressed. The aim was to search for public health programs using Community Engagement tools in healthy environment building towards achievement of SDGs. Key messages Health professionals are involved in the overall process of transformation necessary to achieve the SDGs. Health professionals should be proactive and contribute to the transformation leading to better health for the environment, and thus for the human population.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Gabriel Machimana ◽  
Maximus Monaheng Sefotho ◽  
Liesel Ebersöhn

The purpose of this study is to inform global citizenship practice as a higher education agenda by comparing the retrospective experiences of a range of community engagement partners and including often silent voices of non-researcher partners. Higher education–community engagement aims to contribute to social justice as it constructs and transfers new knowledge from the perspectives of a wide range of community engagement partners. This qualitative secondary analysis study was framed theoretically by the transformative–emancipatory paradigm. Existing case data, generated on retrospective experiences of community engagement partners in a long-term community engagement partnership, were conveniently sampled to analyse and compare a range of community engagement experiences ( parents of student clients ( n = 12: females 10, males 2), teachers from the partner rural school ( n = 18: females 12, males 6), student-educational psychology clients ( n = 31: females 14, males 17), Academic Service-Learning ( ASL) students ( n = 20: females 17, males 3) and researchers ( n = 12: females 11, males 1). Following thematic in-case and cross-case analysis, it emerged that all higher education–community engagement partners experienced that socio-economic challenges (defined as rural school adversities, include financial, geographic and social challenges) are addressed when an higher education–community engagement partnership exists, but that particular operational challenges (communication barriers, time constraints, workload and unclear scope, inconsistent feedback, as well as conflicting expectations) hamper higher education–community engagement partnership. A significant insight from this study is that a range of community engagement partners experience similar challenges when a university and rural school partner. All community engagement partners experienced that higher education–community engagement is challenged by the structural disparity between the rural context and operational miscommunication.


Author(s):  
Tshimangadzo Selina Mudau

The chapter presents the use of community engagement as a tool to facilitate rural development in (South) Africa. In its discussion, the researcher used desktop literature review to analyze, compare, and gain insights guiding the use of community engagement to enhance social transformation and sustainable development. The discussion is advanced from the historical background of the emergence of African universities and community engagement. The focus was reflected against the backdrop of the Western approach used among various global universities. In this view, the underpinning objectives, relationship with the researched, and the role of the researching university are detailed. Practical evidence of positive collaborative results within the (South) African communities within the rural and urban communities by universities and other organizations have also been provided. A contrast of various types of community engagement is also provided.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUDE BUTCHER ◽  
PETER HOWARD ◽  
ELIZABETH LABONE ◽  
MICHAEL BAILEY ◽  
SUSAN GROUNDWATER SMITH ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nelza Mulki Iqbal

Social capital discourse has come to be the foremost and essential aspects in achieving sustainable development, participatory democracy and just cities. Indonesia is like most Asian countries where people spatially and socially co-live in a community that is related to a network of small clusters. However, the formal study related to social capital is hardly founded. Based on its characters, Gotong Royong which is a socio-cultural ethic of the togetherness philosophy in Indonesia can be perceived as an Indonesian social capital practice. Advancing social capital through participatory approaches will need a deep consideration about the role of professional and community engagement. Successful collaborations between wider actors in participatory approaches could lead to a fundamental transformation that can both preserve and nurture social capital values. High level of social capital within communities can potentially underpin the successful community participation towards communal goals.


Author(s):  
Md. Shafiqul Islam

Ecotourism is the useful method of community engagement. All factors related to ecotourism support community livelihoods towards sustainability. The study was conducted with the view to know the possibility of community development through ecotourism in the mangrove areas of Bangladesh. The community participation in ecotourism was assessed significantly with the perception and common interest on natural heritage and environmental conservation and sustainability of the enterprise. The community can contribute and engage themselves by preparing and supplying local foods including organic production and wild foods (aquatic) that enhance the degree of ecotourism through community development. It was elicited that women can work in the prospective enterprise by adding new dimension of handicrafts business using local inputs and forest-based available raw materials. The host communities are the central notion of ecotourism for sustainable development in the study area.


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