Sustainable Development on Campus: Five Lessons

Guest post: Ainash Sagyndykova

It has been so exciting to observe how our ‘Biking Habitat’ project on the sustainable development of our university has grown up from a small students’ project into a reality, with the first trendy cycling station open on campus, and our representatives out riding the bikes and promoting sustainable transportation.

The cycling station was not only fully designed by my classmates, but also funded by money fundraised through our activities. This project had started as a small case study of the MDP/Global Classroom Program on sustainable development here at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

Our supervisor, Prof. Rafis Abazov, has not only overseen the project, but also spent evenings working with us on design, dealing with bureaucracies, contributing to strategies for fundraising and helping to create a buzz. Our message? It’s cooler to ride a bike than a Lexus SUV on our campus.

I learned many things from my sustainable development classes and experience, but the following five are probably most important:

Global environmental problems and the future of the whole planet begin on our streets and in our campuses – so we should always start small.