12 Students from Leadership for Sustainability recently took part in the Fehmarn Belt Days. An international conferences in Lübeck Germany, which consisted of 40 students from 15 different countries. The goal of the conference was to create ideas for cross-cultural collaboration between Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.

As part of the conference an event titled Tomorrows Playground challenged the students to generate sustainable solutions to create a ‘Blue Region’ between the three countries hosting the event. Among the winners were two students from our program Dardan Durmishi and Hedda Rehnberg. Along with receiving a diploma for best idea they have been selected to participate in a jury panel for the ‘Idea Factory’ which will consist of Members of Parliament of Sweden, Denmark and Germany, European Parliament members, and CEO’s of regional Corporations.

Here is a synopsis to the two wining ideas, You can read more here

The blue shape of a wooden ship

“The winning idea from Group C2 was to create a three-country festival – on a ship that sails between the three countries for three weeks. An idea that is rooted in a sustainable hand crafted ship that moves slowly and gives us time to enjoy life and takes us back to the time when the three countries were connected by trade by boat.

The intelligent electrified car

The other winning team, Group T3, built their ideas on the latest high tech innovation – and had a time perspective of around 20 years from now. The electric car – or an improved alternative – should be “intelligent” so that it is safe, fast and non-reliant on fossil fuel. The underlying concept is to make it easier to live in rural areas because of the faster means of transport. Three countries were connected by trade by boat.”

As we welcome a new batch of students to the Leadership for Sustainability Program we would like to also highlight accomplishments by past students as well.

Former student Roanne van Leyden  is working as a program coordinator for the Ö Future Perfect Festival happening 23-26, August 2012, Vaxholm, Stockholm archipelago, Sweden. She would like to invite all past and incoming student to participate. There are opportunities for both volunteer positions and discount tickets. This festival could provide some excellent opportunities to  make some contacts for possible internships and thesis-topics. You can contact Roanne at roanne@futureperfect.se for more information on how to get involved.

Following is a brief explanation about the festival, for more visit http://2012.futureperfect.se/what/

Are you concerned about the state of the environment and want to make a difference, empowered by inspiration, not guilt? Do you work in sustainability and want to connect to the international community in this area? Ö Festival is for you!

WHAT IS Ö FESTIVAL?

Ö Festival is three incredible days and nights of inspiration, creativity, exchange, passion, and relaxation taking place 23-26 August 2012, on the island of Vaxholm, Sweden, exploring the potentials of sustainable living. Created by FuturePerfect, it offers:

● inspiration & exchange with world-leaders in sustainable enterprise, science, design, media and more creative and collaborative facilitation, enabling personal action and social enterprise

● world-class summer music festival

● high-quality health and well-being experiences

Festival partners include IKEA, Vaxholms Kommun, Stockholms Arkitektförening, The Hub, Omställning Sverige, and many more.

Check out the full program, list of speakers and themes, and the FuturePerfect project at www.futureperfect.se

FuturePerfect also invites you or your organisation to use the Ö Festival as a collaborative platform whereyou can:

● Showcase your work, inspire professionals and the public

● Network with a quality audience, get feedback, and find new inspiration

● Share in a global community of engaged organisations and people

buy your tickets at www.futureperfect.se/tickets

ORGANIZERS

Text From Tim Nabholz

The Sustainable People, Sustainable Business, Sustainable World 2-day event is geared towards incorporating ideas from industry,academia, government and the public around sustainability. It will feature 4 main areas where public can participate. The first area of interest is the Stuff Exchange Station. The goal is to “Give new life to things you no longer need!” and is for all Malmö residents and visitors. Throughout these two days – you can bring your no longer needed stuff to the Station at the entrance of Orkanen building and exchange it for something you would be interested in or would need. The event organizers suggest that you already start preparing for this interesting activity. Any item that you believe someone else may want can be donated. Those who bring the nicest and most useful things, will not only be able to exchange them for other interesting objects, but can participate in a lottery and win tickets to the cinema, the theatre, etc.

For more information about this event, check out their website: http://sustainabilityevent.blogspot.se/ and Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/events/405618712782920/

CO – ORGANIZERS

 

 

 

 

Meet Eldar Balta from Mozaik: A community development foundation that
focus on local resource mobilization and sustainability initiatives in rural
communities.

Monday April 16th 16:30-18:00
Malmö högskola – Orkanen, D138

Mozaik is a community development foundation that provides grants and advisory support for local initiatives of common interest throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. They focus on local resource mobilization and sustainability through implementing a range of programs that support initiatives in rural communities.

This year Malmö University was awarded 29 Minor Field Studies scholarships to distribute among students for doing field work in connection with their thesis (final degree project). This means that students from  masters programs can also apply for a grant provided they comply with the general eligibility criteria.

The Minor Field Studies (MFS) program is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and aims to give Swedish students the possibility to get to know more about developing countries and issues related to development. In its essence, the MFS scholarship is a travel grant of 25 000 Swedish crowns for doing fieldwork that should last 8 to 10 weeks in connection to writing a bachelor or master level thesis (degree project).

In order to be eligible for the grant, the applicants should either have a Swedish citizenship, or a permanent residence permit in Sweden. In the latter case, the field work should not be done in the student’s country of origin. Applicants from other Nordic countries who are not Swedish citizens can get an exception in certain cases. Other eligibility criteria is knowledge of English, as well as a minimum of 150 educational credits. More information about the grants is available here (only in Swedish).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 15 March 2012.

If anyone is interested to write about HIV/AIDS, there might also be opportunities at another SIDA funded project. More information is available here.

Text by Julia Velkova

On Friday Jan. 20 Lisa Ann Richey from Roskilde University will be giving a seminar on Brand Aid: Shopping well to save the world “A critical account of the rise of celebrity-driven “compassionate consumption”. She recently published a book of the same name that was based on the social cause marketing program Product RED. The basic concept of Product RED is  if you buy something RED such as an I Phone a certain percentage of the purchase price will go to fighting AIDS. The campaign was started in part by Bono the lead singer of U2 and features many high end products and also brands like Nike and Starbucks. She provides some very interesting insight on Corporate Social Responsible, Social innovation,  ethical consumerism,  and celebratory endorsement of aid.

The seminar will be a great introduction to some of the concepts we will cover in social entrepreneurship and innovation and give you some ideas on how the concept is used on a large scale.

The seminar is at 15:00  in U 303, if you can not make it in person, the seminar will also be streamed online at http://wpmu.mah.se/comdev/

Full program here http://wpmu.mah.se/comdev/seminar/

My name is Catherine Kärnbo,  I am undertaking a six month course in Project management at Malmö University. The course is acting as a platform for me to have hands on planning for my future projects. I am a social entrepreneur who sees opportunities out of the challenges faced in society. With my many ideas some for Uganda, I have been able to streamline alternatives following the course guide. It is also through my course I got to know about Active citizens.

My project springs from the fact that I have an interest in people and the diversity of cultures. I believe we learn a lot from each other and it is always amazing to hear how people from different nations do things and how it is in their countries. My focus on the project is aiming towards integrating and engaging internationals in the Swedish society with a view that they are a resource to society. Do they contribute something to us while in Sweden? How can we make their stay worth? Most of them are here for a short time but when they leave, they will promote the university for example. So the project falls in line with internationalization at home. Any ideas or inquiries please contact me: cnk.joy@gmail.com

I am glad to have joined Active citizens – empowering European citizens program in Tallin Estonia. The conference gave us an opportunity to share our ideas with all other European participants and be inspired. We also received tools which I will use in my project.  One of the tool is the 4D cycle (appreciative inquiry) i.e. Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny.

Guest contributor and Project Management student Julian Urban offers some thoughts and advice on how you can enjoy a more sustainable Holiday season. See more form Malmö University students at www.mahskara.com/

The subject of sustainability is seen as one of the core issues of the world’s future today. In Sweden and in many places all over the world, people have started to sort their garbage, think twice before consuming and struggle to reduce the amount of energy they use. All that – until it’s Christmas time.

Let me make one thing clear: I love Christmas and the last thing I want to do is to destroy your affection to this wonderful time of the year. But as soon as November turns into December even people who normally could be described as very concerned about the environment turn out not to be caring so much anymore, just because it is Christmas. And with that comes all these things that are wonderful – and completely unsustainable. But it is possible to have a wonderful time and care for the environment. The following lines shall make you think about how you spend Christmas and how you might change your behavior to avoid littering or save some energy. Whatever you will do, it will be wonderful present to all of us.

A strange affection to ugly decoration on wood

Every once in a while the cutting down of the rainforests in South America hits the news. But why  do we complain about the people there, while we in Europa we cut down hundreds of thousands of trees only to place them in our homes and hang weird old-fashioned decorations on their branches? What could all these trees do for us? Absorb CO2! Cast a shadow in summer!

Along with the, all so sudden affection to fresh wood in our living-rooms that will no doubt end once the tree runs out of water and gets this ugly brownish color, comes another waste of energy – but a beautiful one. I am talking about all the wonderful lights that are built up all over the city, in apartment windows and simply everywhere you can imagine. Even though the winter is a dark time that definitively could use some light, one could assume that there is enough light in every household so that no more electricity is being needed. Especially if it is provided in the shape of a star, an angel or an elk.

Driving home for Christmas

The holidays are the time of the year that no one wants to spend all alone. So, if you do not live with your parents or very near to them, you’ll probably go home to see them. But as if this was not nerve-racking enough, most of this traveling is done – by car, or, even worse, by plane, blowing tons of unnecessary green house gasses in the atmosphere. Why not take the train home for Christmas or share a car with a person from the same town? It is not only environmental friendly, it is also cheaper – and the chances to make new friends are higher as well. However, once arrived at your final destination, you will probably sit down and have the wonderful Christmas dinner with your family. It may contain pork, chicken, turkey or goose but it will for sure contain tons of antibiotics and will have cost the environment an enormous loss, due to transport or even the life cycle of the animal.

And what do we all expect after the dinner? Right. Presents. Because, let’s face it, more than anything else Christmas has become a wonderful opportunity to show our beloved ones how much we care about them. Mostly measured by the number of presents and the amount of money spent on them. And yes, your mother will probably be pleased by this perfume you bought for her and yes,  your father might love this DVD you purchased for him. But – your parents will most definitively not love you less if your sign of affection is voucher for a self-cooked meal, a portrait of you in a nice frame or a pullover that will keep them warm and that, in contrast to what you have chosen, they really, really need.

What to do?

I know that the picture of nicely wrapped gift lying under a Christmas tree in the light of this star-shaped lamp in the window might seem to be one of the most desirable things for you. But imagine, just for a second, what else it could be: Replace the Christmas tree with some nicely arranged fir-branches, the star-shaped lamp with some wonderfully flickering candles and the randomly chosen gift in golden wrapping with something nice, but useful, wrapped in yesterdays old newspaper.  And, let me tell you, vegetarian or vegan food can be very tasty as well. Wouldn’t you agree with me, when I say that a vegetarian cookbook could be a wonderful Christmas gift…? Every journey starts with a first move.

Merry Christmas.

The fall course in Project Management and Organization is only half way complete and already some students are testing out the practical applications of what they have learned in class so far. We have had five students selected to take part in the Empowering European Citizens project organized by the  British Council and the Center for Public Entrepreneurship in Malmö, and others are actively planning events that are to be part of their project work to in order complete the course.

Zarina Mukhamedova,Catherine Kärnbo and Bashar Magableh are three of the five students taking part in the Empowering European Citizens project. As part of the project they will be traveling to different countries throughout Europe to take part in planning workshops and share ideas with other project participants. They have just returned from Estonia and Finland respectively and both are excited about the future of their projects. We will be posting more student profiles and following the success of their projects in the near future.

Joseph Aloo along with Frivillgcentra, Malmö is planning an event called “Open your eyes Malmö” scheduled for February 9^th, between10-14. The event will bring together several organizations from the grater Malmö area and hopefully serve as a platform were people can become engaged with activates and organizations that are of interest them. The last event featured over 45 organizations looking to create more engagement with Malmö University students. To learn more (in Swedish) check out this article http://frivillig.se/files/1/pdf__20111111103148.pdf

There will many more exciting things happing throughout the year, to read more about them stay tuned to this web page, join one of our social media platforms or subscribe to our newsletter.

I am doing a Master degree in International Migration and Ethnic Relations. Currently I am taking an elective course in Project Management and Organization, the course will help me to realize my dream project. I have always been curious about working with NGOs and I am always ready to create innovative ideas that will reflect positively on the community, and the society we live in, specifically in regard to third world countries. It was always my dream to initiate the project that deals with the children, especially orphanage, refugee, separated and asylum seeking children. The programme of Empowering European Citizens organized by British Council will provide me with the opportunity to develop my vision towards my project, practice my leadership and intercultural dialogue skills and build new relationship with the people from diverse communities. It will be my pleasure to go to Tallinn and Hungary to attend the conference, and to discuss and share ideas with other potential participants of the programme. zarina.mukhamedova@gmail.com