Outreach Educational Activities on SDGs for Alumni, Local Residents and Displaced People

Walailak University has provided SDG education to alumni, local residents, and displaced people through various platforms. Sustainable development must involve everyone to collaboratively mobilize the world toward sustainability. Walailak University provides SDG education for all through educational activities, the WU SDG website, social media, and publications. WU is committed to raising awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals among alumni, local residents, and displaced people of all 17 goals. The WU staff providing knowledge about SDGs instruct and explain the SDG knowledge with easily understandable methods, especially for local residents.

SDG education can help alumni, local residents, and displaced people develop insights into various sustainable matters around the world, including water security, lack of food resources, climate change, poverty, environmental impacts, gender equality, and peaceful societies.

WU SDG Website and Alumni Reunion: Strengthening SDG Education for Alumni

The Center for Academic Services has developed the SDG website as a platform to do public relations on SDGs through WU work. The website disseminates the SDG information at WU in all sustainability agendas, including research and intervention, teaching, outreach engagement, and stewardship. In each SDG, there are stories of the agendas that visitors can read to understand all SDGs. For more information, click https://cas.wu.ac.th/sdgs/

Walailak University always places importance on SDG education among alumni to raise awareness of global challenges. Most of the alumni are workers who are the next generation to mobilize the world to build sustainability. They need to be aware of cultural norms and differences around the world so that they can succeed and thrive. Moreover, SDG education can help alumni learn empathy and compassion for global challenges.

In addition, Walailak University organizes an alumni reunion every year, and SDG education is part of the reunion, which can also raise awareness of global challenges. Besides the education, some alumni establish partnerships with the university to drive SDG projects or initiatives for local, regional, national, and international communities.

SDG Education for Local Residents

The Center for Academic Services (CAS), Walailak University, is responsible for providing SDG education to local residents. The staff of the center use easily understandable methods to instruct SDGs for local residents. SDG education can raise awareness of the global challenges that humans are facing. WU would like to show that Thai society is part of the international community. The global challenges that other parts of the world are facing are what Thai society is also facing. Thus, Walailak University aims to encourage all local residents to collaboratively tackle global challenges to make the world more sustainable. Outreach engagement projects also are a pivotal role in contributing to SDG education among local residents.

SDG Education for Displaced People: No One Left Behind

Migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia have been working in Thailand for more than 10 years because the living wage is much higher compared to the local living wages in those countries. In the Indochinese Peninsula (Mainland Southeast Asia), Thailand is a country serving as an economic hub in the region, resulting in many migrant workers who have long sought better job opportunities in the country. These workers have been engaged in Thai industries such as agriculture, construction, the service sector, and fisheries. In the south of Thailand, the majority of refugees or displaced people are Burmese people who migrated from Myanmar due to the 2021 Myanmar coup d’état. They have been working in Thailand with insufficient welfare benefits, and most of them cannot go back to their homeland country due to the political crisis.

In 2022, Walailak University provided outreach engagement projects to Burmese migrant workers and displaced people to improve their livelihoods through human rights promotion. The projects cover various sustainable matters, including health promotion, agriculture, aquaculture, climate change tackling, and others.

In addition, Walailak University through the Center for Academic Services provides SDG education to Burmese migrant workers through the SDG Booklet developed by the Center for Academic Services of Walailak University. The booklet provided basic information on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for all 17 goals, both in English and Burmese, so that they could understand clearly. WU freely provided the booklet to Burmese displaced people or migrant workers to raise awareness of the global challenges that the world is facing. The university is planning to develop booklets in the languages of other displaced groups living in Thailand.