Asia-Pacific intl. schools convene for SDG Summit

Writer: Wang Haolan  | Editor: Holly Wang  | From:  | Updated: 2019-09-16

Steve Sostak (one in the blue plaid shirt), founder of Inspire Citizens, gives a keynote speech at the lights-out session of the Shekou SDG Summit at the Bayside Campus of Shekou International School on Friday. Wang Haolan

Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the small amphitheater on the Bayside Campus of Shekou International School (SIS), 130 educators, students and NGO members were empowered with the empathy to impact the world at the inaugural Shekou Sustainable Development Goals Summit (Shekou SDG Summit) this Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

The two-day event, held on Friday and Saturday, knitted up a professional learning community among education practitioners from across the Asia-Pacific region by holding a collection of workshops and project-based presentations.

All of the events were centered on the 17 sustainable development goals put forward by the United Nations, which are expected to be fulfilled by the year 2030. The goals cover a handful of global issues that demand prompt solutions, such as poverty alleviation, gender equality, quality education and environmental protection.

The United Nation Sustainable Development Goals. File photo

“The SDG is a perfect educational piece for our schools. The U.N. generalizes the goals. However, it leaves the questions to the schools and members in their education communities to let them think of how can they measure their own contributions to sustainable development on the global scale,” said Nathan Lill, the middle school assistant principal at SIS and one of the major curators of the Shekou SDG Summit.

The workshop sessions were led by Inspire Citizens — a Beijing-based pedagogic organization specialized in embedding the U.N. SDG targets in intramural learning. The co-founders, Aaron Moniz and Steve Sostak, organized two experimental classes on a root-cause based learning methodology and a board-game like toolkit that elaborates on the sustainable development goals for the participants.

“Our goal is to offer a thinking framework of sustainable development to the teachers and students, which they can make adaptations to according to the different contexts of their countries and schools,” said Sostak.

“We let the teachers to try out the toolkits and mentalities themselves, so they will better understand what may go on in their students’ heads, and whether those methods can be used in the classroom next Monday. We hope the teachers and students can get connected in terms of sustainable development with this initial experience,” added Moniz.

The summit also welcomed insights and thoughts from the perspectives of parents and corporations that contributes to sustainable development. Stefan Karlsson, a Swedish father of two who has formerly worked in the sustainability department of IKEA for seven years, gave a session on the Swedish retailer giant’s endeavors in helping the migrant parents working in coastal cities reunited with their left-behind children.

 “We supported those factories having a large share of migrant workers in providing dormitories to the migrant families, and also in sending the children to local migrant school, lest they are separate from their parents again. Bringing families together may not only let the children pick up kindness and the caring nature of human beings at their early ages, but also makes great difference in promoting sustainable development of the world,” said Karlsson. 

On the sidelines of the summit, students from SIS, Shenwai International School and Xi'an Yangjiatang International School made presentations of their SDG projects, covering such topics as air quality, anti-smoking among peers and giving voluntary music lessons to migrant children.

According to Ann Durham, a teacher with the secondary school at SIS, all of the participants in the summit will share the progress they have made in promoting sustainable development on their campuses online by the end of the autumn semester.

Jointly hosted by SIS, International School Service and Inspire Citizens, the summit was attended by international schools and NGOs from home as well as from six Asia-Pacific countries, including South Korea and Indonesia. Sostak and Moniz hope their event can be held on a regularly basis with wider reach both in China and across the world.

“We also want to hold a Chinese-speaking version of the event, so that more of the Chinese experts from the top domestic schools and education communities can share their views. Ideas from the perspectives of parents and corporations are also warmly welcomed in the following editions,” said the co-founders.