Tomorrow today; 2010 - unesdoc - Unesco

An integrated approach to mainstreaming sustainability at USMSource: Centre for Global Sustainability Studies, USMto extend this to all buildings on campus. At USM’s new engineeringcampus, bicycle use is promoted. USM has delineated green space areasin its main campus that will be protected from building or developmentprojects. Lastly, polystyrene containers are banned on campus,and students are supplied with biodegradable containers free of charge.Healthy CampusThe Kampus Sejahtera (Healthy Campus) programme emerged in2000 from the realization that students’ ability to learn depends ontheir health and quality of life. The indigenous word sejahtera cutsacross spiritual, social, physical, mental and environmental dimensions.The USM Clinic, (USM Sejahtera Centre) along with volunteerstudents, runs annual anti-obesity and anti-tobacco clinics, recyclinginitiatives and activities for ‘differently-abled’ students. USM facilitiesfeature user-friendly ramps, shortcut passages, parking spaces andtoilets for physically challenged students and staff. 6 An innovation ofinternational significance in the area of health is the ‘typhidot: rapiddiagnostic test-kit’ which has reduced typhoid detection time fromthe usual two to five days to just under one hour. This kit, developedby USM’s Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, is marketedto about 18 countries around the world.A transdisciplinary approachUSM has adopted a cluster approach to addressing sustainabilityissues, striving to strike a balance between science and technology,social sciences and humanities, especially in research. Humanitiessuch as art, literature, culture, language, history and philosophy areplaying an increasingly important role in promoting sustainability.‘Art therapy’ is an area of multi-disciplinary research at USM thatinvolves the School of Arts and the School of Medical Sciences. Theemotive power of humanities can cut across disciplines,sectors and borders, bringing meaning and purpose todaily life. For example, USM’s Going Bananas projecthas brought together researchers from the School of Artand scientists from the School of Industrial Technologyto train village communities in Balik Pulau, Malaysia tomake handmade paper from banana trees. The paper isof print quality and is also used for making handicraftssuch as lampshades, boxes and lanterns. This incomegeneratingproject is popular with unemployed youngpeople and women in the village.USM community partnership programmesExamples of these programmes include the recent formationof Innovation XChange (IXC Malaysia Berhad) tofacilitate the exchange of information between USMresearchers and industry players; sains@usm, a nexuswhere science, technology, arts, academia and businessintersect to produce innovative solutions tosocio-economic challenges; and the Malaysian Citizen’sInitiative, a school-based community sustainabilityprogramme in which high school students are trainedto work with their communities to identify and addresssustainability issues through participatory approaches.About 5,000 students from nearly 50 Malaysian schoolshave undergone this training so far. Finally, the TaipingPeace Garden Project promotes peace and harmony inTaiping, Malaysia, a city with a history of communalproblems and the Mindanao Peace Programme aimsto resolve the conflict in Mindanao, Philippines, by[ 107 ]