EcoKnights®

23 March 2012, Kuala Lumpur - EcoKnights was invited to present a paper on "Leading a Sustainable Campus Life" at the UM Cares Capacity Building Workshop, held at Lecture Hall 4 at the Science Faculty of University Malaya.

The Workshop was organized by UM Cares, under the leadership of Dr Zeeda Fatimah and assisted by Fiza, Fatehah and Hariz as the led team.

The programme’s main objectives are to (1) enhance student’s awareness in realizing how important it is to protect and sustain the campus environment, and (2) to nurture their motivation to take proactive action on the ground based on this enhanced awareness.

This camp also aims to encourage participating UM students to digitally record features of their campus that represent the essence of a sustainable campus.  Video clips that form the output of this camp represent the campus as seen through the eyes of the UM youths.  Participants work in teams to capture and record what they see to comply with UM’s move towards a sustainable campus in the very near future.

During the 3-day workshop, participants will be engaged in an environmentally oriented “digital culture” workshop with hands-on exposure on environmental appreciation and computer training sessions.

About 50 students attended the camp with about 6 paper presenters and speakers lined up to engage the students with knowledge and empowerment to start taking sustainable steps to achieve a healthy and greener campus culture.

Representing EcoKnights was its president and founder, Yasmin Rasyid (picture on the right), who presented a paper which addresses lifestyle habits and attitudes that can be molded in to sustainable ways of living on campus. Yasmin touched on common areas in which UM students can start immediately to reduce their impact on the environment. This includes showing earth-friendly ways of completing printed assignments, energy management in the dormitories, and of course, sustainable fodo consumption.

Yasmin also briefly guided the audience by sharing information on the need to look at the ways in which university students are consuming too much resources, and how a habitual change can help ameliorate the planet from so many harmful man-made activities.

EcoKnights hopes that through more engagement with university students such as that from this camp, more young Malaysians would see the impacts of their everyday actions on the planet and would be able to make balanced decisions and actions to balance their demands from the planet.