Conference seeks to engage youths to contribute to issues of global importance

Miri – 9 March 2011 – The inaugural Sustainable Development and Leadership Forum 2011 to be held at Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak) on 12 March 2011 seeks to engage active youths from different educational backgrounds to think about, and contribute to, issues of global importance.

Through this event – jointly organised by Curtin Sarawak and the United Nations Association of Singapore (UNAS) – participants will hear from experts and academics about environmental sustainability and the value of community service; and have the opportunity to hone communication and leadership skills to tangibly put their ideas into action.

The participants will be largely upper secondary students and students from institutions of higher learning. Invitations to participate have been extended to students from Curtin Sarawak and most secondary schools in Miri.

With the conference theme ‘Let’s Act’, it is hoped the speakers’ diverse perspectives would inspire the participants to look to themselves to do something for the community.

“We will have a very distinguished panel of speakers with significant academic backgrounds and experience. It is also the perfect platform for participants to network and communicate with one another before, during and after the conference. I think they will gain tremendously from it,” said Beena Giridharan, Dean of Curtin Sarawak’s School of Foundation and Continuing Studies and co-organiser for the conference.

The assortment of issues and topics that will be discussed and expounded by the speakers include the keynote address by Assistant Professor Jude Chua Soo Meng entitled How To Think About Climate Change: It’s Not All Science. Professor Chua is Assistant Professor of philosophy at the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.

He will crucially touch on the place of ethics, as well as the centrality of ethics, in climate change education. He will put forth the proposition that the way to think about climate change is precisely to not think scientifically about it. He will also develop that line of thought and suggest that religious ideas, often held in contempt by economists and policy makers, can play an important role to help us think aright about climatic change.

Dr Tony See, Senior Lecturer and Degree Course Coordinator in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore where he teaches Philosophy and Critical Theory, will meanwhile present a talk on Sustainability, Sovereignty And Sorge: Towards A New Philosophy Of The Environment.

Dr See will contend that a way of moving beyond the current impasse in environmental, sustainable and green discourses is by way of rethinking our commonly accepted notion of sovereignty.

Curtin Sarawak’s Dr Tang Fu Ee, a Senior Lecturer in the university’s Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, will give a presentation entitled Sustainability: The Wastewater Issue In Sarawak, in which he willpresent the various existing methods used in wastewater treatment in Sarawak and why effective alternative treatment systems need to be explored to improve wastewater management.

Dr Tang’s research interests include decentralised wastewater treatment, engineered wetlands for wastewater and septage treatment, and coastal hydrodynamics.

Beena, meanwhile, will talk about how community service and volunteerism can benefit youth in her presentation on Principles Of Community Service. According to her, studies have shown that performing community service and volunteering not only benefits the community but the volunteers as well as it gives them a sense of increased self-esteem and feeling of being valued, in addition to helping them develop social and cognitive skills.

Mohammed Radzi, MERCY Malaysia’s Head of Human Resource and Volunteer Management, will engage participants with his real-life experiences in his presentation on Social Leadership and Volunteerism. He, too, will advocate the fulfilment and satisfaction of community work, and inspire them to be eventual agents of change and development in their own societies and communities.

In addition to the talks, participants will get to join workshops facilitated by Yap Kwong Weng, Secretary-General of UNAS (Crisis Leadership); Chuah Chern Chung, a master student in marine biology at the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies of Universiti Sains Malaysia (Connecting Biodiversity And You); and David Hoe, Project Director of Social and Leadership Development for UNAS’ Youth Council, and James Chai, a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering student of Curtin Sarawak and president of the university’s Student Council (The ‘Ripple Effect’).

Students interested to participate in the Sustainable Development and Leadership Forum can register with Lydia Mujah of Curtin Sarawak’s School of Foundation and Continuing Studies at 085-443939 ext. 4215 or by e-mailing lydia.m@curtin.edu.my.