In its first year, the IMU Sustainability Student Club started to build Partnerships for the Goals and develop projects that will sustainably improve life for future generations.
Yağmur ÖNER, Vice President of IMU Sustainability Student Club, represented our university by taking part among the workshop participants in the Turkey leg of the Global Goals Jam events held in more than 100 cities around the world. The workshop, facilitated by Repair Workshop | Regenerative Impact Space, was held on February 03, 2024 in Istanbul, hosted by ATÖLYE. In the workshop, participants received sustainability training and produced innovative projects focused on “Regeneration”, the theme of this year’s Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, in teams consisting of different stakeholder groups.
In the workshop, the participants were first informed about the sustainable development goals, which are a global call, consisting of 17 main goals and 169 sub-goals, set by the United Nations to solve social, cultural, economic and environmental problems around the world and to leave a sustainable world for future generations. Pointing out that sustainability has not only environmental but also social and economic meanings, the workshop emphasized that today’s new economic development policies, like the donut economy, are based on respect for the world’s resources and fair sharing. It was pointed out that basic human needs such as drinking water, food, health, health, education, working income, justice and peace, political participation, social equality, gender equality, energy, housing and networks are directly related to ecological limits such as climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrogen and phosphorus loading, freshwater withdrawal, soil change, biodiversity loss, atmospheric pollution and ozone depletion. It was stated that an ecologically safe and socially just life and sustainable growth for humanity can only be possible in an order in which these limits are balanced.
The second part of the workshop focused on brainstorming around this year’s theme, “Regeneration”, where participants were inspired by the outcomes of COP28 and the need to focus on going beyond sustainability, repairing damaged systems and revitalizing ecosystems. In this section, participants developed design thinking and innovative problem-solving approaches to overcome the challenges faced in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Participants from different fields of expertise, including designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, activists, educators, private sector and civil society representatives, collaborated across disciplines to create innovative solutions, ranging from service designs to product prototypes, aimed at advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and creating positive social impact.
In the project development, the group that ÖNER was part of focused on the challenges that vulnerable groups such as women, people with disabilities and immigrants face in everyday life. The group developed a process design that identifies people on the basis of their abilities and disadvantages and becomes an actor for both receiving help and providing solutions, guiding and empowering disadvantaged groups by sharing experience or expertise.
