Fulfilling SDGs: a Sustainable Development Students’ Week (SDSW) and a collaborative website about SDGs
Description
25 000 thousands students live and study in the Metropol of Brest: young adults in 2030, who will build the future. The challenge of our project is to let the students know more about the SDGs in order to implement them on our territory, and further. For this goal, we combine two ways of raising awareness: the first way to make them understand the topics, is to make them practice some activities, the best way to help them to understand that it’s easy acquire new ones and fulfil the SDGs. At the same time, the internet collaborative site will be launched,
The challenge of our project is to let the students know more about the SDGs in order to implement them on our territory, and further. For this goal, we combine two ways of raising awareness: the first way to make them understand the topics, is to make them practice some activities, the best way to help them to understand that it’s easy acquire new ones and fulfil the SDGs. At the same time, the internet collaborative site will be launched, in order to become the main site about SDGs and sustainable practices and projects on our territory, shared as well by private as well by public partners. <br />
The event will take place the 1st week of April, which is the moment of the national SDSW, in order to create links with other cities, universities and institutions of higher education, and to make our festival identified at a national level. The SDSW is a variation of the European Sustainable Development Week (which takes place later : http://evenements.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/campagne/sedd2018), and is an initiative supported by the REFEDD (REseau Français des Etudiants pour le Développement Durable – French Student’s Network for Sustainability), in partnership with many institutions, among which the French Ministry for Ecological Transition and Solidarity, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the ADEME (Agency for Environment and Energy) etc.
In the same way, the collaborative site will profit to all the partners who will be able to contribute and publish contents about their actions in favour of SDGs, but also to all the citizens who will visit it and develop their knowledge, and thus, their commitment for SDGs.
Implementers: In December 2017, a group of partners (Brest Métropole, the CLOUS of Brest (CROUS of Rennes), the UBO, the IMT Atlantique and the lycée Jules Lesven) who had made a bid and won it, and benefited by an event supported by AVUF, Caisse des dépôts : the “Tour de France Agir ensemble”, dedicated to eco-friendly actions.
When we decided to organize the SDSW and to open the collaborative website, we first asked the directors and presidents of the higher education institutions to sign a roadmap, in order to define the common frame and to officialise the commitment of these actors in the event.
We formed a steering group, who meets every month since one year, and various boards, dedicated to communication, planning, partnership.
But, since it is a students’ week, it was crucial to have them committed in the process, and the students of the different institutions organized various events to take place either on their own campus, or at the SDGs Village, place de la Liberté.
Institutions themselves helped them to coordinate their actions, and brought financial support.
Brest Métropole brings financial and logistical support, providing the fitting of Place de la Liberté, and mobilizing several associations concerned by Sustainability, who will organize actions during the SDSW. Employees of Brest Métropole will also intervene on the SDGs Village, in order to inform students and citizens about the city’s actions in favour of fulfilment of SDGs.
The Crédit Agricole provides the communicational means, creating the graphical world of the event for its various advertising media.
The Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne provides financial support.
Results and outputs we are waiting and working for: we want to make students and more generally the young generation aware of the challenges of the next decade, which brings to 2030, moment when the SDGs UN Agenda must be completed. In a period when simultaneously climatoscepticism grows, and citizens mobilize in Climate Marches or other actions, we consider we have a role to play to participate to the fight against climatoscepticism and to the reinforcement of citizens’ mobilization.
That’s why we are working for an important impact of the event and of the website, in order to have a real effect on citizens representations and to make them evolve toward a more sustainable way of life and respect of SGDs. The institutions collaborate for the organization of this event and the creation of the website because they share the vision of an eco-friendly society, respectful of SDGs, and aware of the educative role they play in the society.
The indicators which will use to analyze the impact of our action are:
1. For the SDSW:
- The variety of actions and events planned by the partners and the quantity of SDGs tackled
- The quantity of participants (on each campus and on the SDGs Village
- The level of satisfaction of the organizers (wish to organize the SDSW#2 next year e.g.)
- The number of partners wishing to join the event next year
2. For the collaborative website:
- The number of articles published per month
- The number of authors on the site
- The number of visitors on the site per month
- The number of subscribers to the newsletter
This event is interesting because it is mainly organized by students themselves, with the support of institutions, of course. The aim is to give them as much autonomy as possible, which is for us the key of education in general.
The SDSW contributes to spread the knowledge of SDGs, thanks to the event itself and thanks to the web site which will be associated to it, and which won’t be limited to the promotion of the event, but has the ambition to show, during the whole year between each SDSW, the various realizations and contributions of the territory to the SDGs.
This site is characterized by the fact that it is collaborative, which means that every partner can contribute to it. This model appears to us as the evidence of the democratic spirit and the empowerment linked to the SDGs.
We also noticed that a legal structure (an association e.g.) would have been helpful for this project, but we decided to constitute it for the next edition.
Finally, we can mention the differences between institutions in terms of appropriation of Sustainability practices and problematics. For example, the IMT Atlantique has placed Sustainability in the core of its policy since already ten years, and have realizations far more important than any of the institutions concerned by the event.
However, this difference in the promotion of Sustainability is not a major obstacle since other institution can benefit from its experience and views, to progress in their own development of Sustainability. It was precisely the aim of this project: to involve new partners and create a community around the SDGs. The energy of the team who launched this event has been acknowledged as remarkable, insofar as the obstacles to overcome have been numerous, and our solidarity – an essential support.
The website we are launching is obviously innovative, since its collaborative dimension remains rare among institutional practices. It reflects the more general collaborative spirit of our project.
But we also have the intention to develop the event on the territory: born in Brest, with the strong support of Brest Métropole, we want to reach more effectively other cities of Finistère (Morlaix and Quimper, where the UBO is implemented), and if possible of other departments, like Vannes and Lorient, where the UBS (university of Bretagne Sud) is located, and with whom the UBO is building an Alliance. This second university can be a strong partner for this kind of event.
When we began to work on this project, we felt that we needed to involve more students in the awareness raising of the challenges we have to face. Since then, all over the world, Climate Marches have appeared; the young Greta Thunberg has launched a new dynamic among young people and new activists for sustainability appear; students in Belgium demonstrate for climate. Now, we consider that our project is a response to this new situation: the young generation wants to see that, in front of the various challenges, actions are undertaken.
the website is to be launched in March, 2019
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natalia leclerc, Dr