By Danial Yusof
GOMBAK, 24 December 2020: The Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development “RCE Greater Gombak” receives eight awards in the 2020 RCE Awards for Innovative Projects on Education for Sustainable Development.
The award is hosted by the RCE Global Service Centre and divided into three categories.
The announcement of the award was delivered virtually through Global RCE Network portal on 22 December recently.
The award is to recognise projects and programmes that serve as a liaison between the local community and engage them with sustainable development projects involving transformative learning and research and initiatives that contribute to research and development and capacity development of various parties.
The three award categories are Outstanding Flagship Project, Acknowledged Flagship Project and Honourable Mention. For Outstanding Flagship Project category, two RCE G2 projects received the awards, namely “Change the World” and “Whole Community Transformation through Feed to Educate” projects.
Meanwhile, for the second category, the Acknowledged Flagship Project, three RCE G2 projects received the awards for the category which are “Mainstreaming SDGs- Society as Agent of Changes”, “Living in Fortuitous Era (LIFE)” and “Greater Gombak Animal Shelter Project”.
The last category of Honourable Mention, a total of three projects received awards namely “Student Networking with Indigenous People Club (JASA) Mentoring Enviro-Camp”, IIUM Mental Health and Psychosocial Care Team (IMPaCT)” and Capacity Building for Islam, Peace and Civilization Development: Engaging Extremism, Terrorism and Conflict through Education for Sustainability (2019-2020): #2Lead4Peace”.
Last April, IIUM was recognised as the Regional Centre for Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development. RCE is a cooperation between individual, expertise and organisations which are committed in building sustainable future through education.
This Regional Centre of Expertise is named RCE Greater Gombak which is based on education function for sustainable development. Under the RCE Greater Gombak, IIUM plays its role in leading community engagement activities and sustainable education initiatives together with the communities, industries, non-governmental organisations and the government sector.
According to IIUM Rector, Prof. Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak with the recognition received, it further completes IIUM’s slogan by applying the concept of Khalifah, Iqra’, Amanah and Rahmatan Lil Alamin (KhAIR) and strengthens the cooperation and teamwork in areas of expertise.
“By applying this KhAIR concept, it shows that the projects carried out are a blessing to the whole world plus this award-winning project consists of community projects, not only to the environment but also to animals such as cats as well,” he said.
The project carried out includes three aspects of sustainability, namely social transformation, spirituality and sustainability as well as well-being which carried out by IIUM with its collaborating partners. These projects are in line with the 17 key achievements of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
“As one of the Islamic universities, it is indeed our responsibility to maintain the sustainability and well-being as demanded by the religion”, the Rector added.***