Team:NU Kazakhstan/Sustainable
Background
Sustainability
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. There are 17 of them, designed by the United States General Assembly in 2015, that are planned to be achieved in order to create a sustainable world for all of us. This call to action is very important, therefore, it’s not only the duty of states and organisations to implement the idea, but also ours as students, citizens of our country and part of the interconnected world.
This year all iGEM teams tried to include some of those SDGs in their project to contribute in changing the community for the better. One of those big actions done by the community of young scientists is the iGEM x SDG Impact Challenge organised by iGEM TAS_Taipei. For several weeks, 26 iGEM teams collaborated with and assigned tasks to each other. There were various tasks focusing on SDGs and their subgoals to complete in several weeks. At the end of the collaboration, on 18 September, iGEM TAS_Taipei hosted the “Impact Challenge meeting” in which teams presented their project and shared the results of tasks they were assigned.
Our SDGs
Our main focus this year was to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning. According to statistics in 2021, 690 thousand people in Kazakhstan are individuals with disabilities. 27 thousand of them are visually impared people. These individuals require educational materials designed considering their needs, especially during pandemic, when access to offline classes is limited. Moreover, considering the growth of Kazakh speaking population, there is also an increasing necessity of inclusive education in the Kazakh language. Having visual impairment or disability restricts people neither from learning nor from working in education or science. Our project aims to provide opportunities for visually impaired and blind people to learn science. This will be done through the design of tactile educating posters on Biological science topics and postcards. These materials will be manufactured with tactile visuals and with the implementation of the Braille script.
Our goal is quality education and iGEM Bochum translated our posters as a task from our team (SDG: 4A).
Within the SDG Impact Challenge, we completed tasks presented by the Korea_HS team: translated their pamphlet and distributed it among children from socially vulnerable communities (SDG: 3.9/3.B) and connected them with a person who had undergone chemotherapy for an interview with their team (SDG: 4.5:).
3.9/3.B Put us in contact (provide us contact information and gain interviewee's consent) with a person who is or has been on chemotherapy.
4.5: Distribute our educational pamphlet to at least 3 groups listed in goal 4 to promote equal access to education.
Contribution
Goal 3.9: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
Comment: This year our team is focused on designing P.putida strains capable of oil bioremediation by using rhamnolipids, genes of which are isolated from P.aeruginosa and inserted into our target bacteria
Goal 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes
Comment: iGEM Summer Camp is an event that aims to cultivate science-oriented minds among youngsters, promote iGEM activities, and provide technology career guidance for high school students in Kazakhstan. Quota places for SVC students at Summer Camp to ensure students who are socially vulnerable with granted places at online camp
Goal 4.A: Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
Comment: Translating our educational posters to native language(s) and distributing them to 3 or more local secondary schools. Converting the posters into Braille’s font and spreading them in 2 local libraries and 1 specialised library for people with visual impairments
Goal 9.5: Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending
Comment: Hosting online Biohackathon among local and international students by solving well-formulated local challenges in natural sciences to ensure the development of Bioinformatics and Machine Learning in Kazakhstan and the world.
Goal 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
Comment: Organizing inclusive talks, interview with LGBTQ+ member in science, voice-overs of posters for visually impaired and blind students, collaboration with iGEM Crete team on creating materials for people with sight problems, quota places for SVC students at Summer Camp, fair judging of Biohackathon with strict non-discrimination rules.
Reference List:
- Sustainable development goals. United Nations Development Programme. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2021, from https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals?utm_source=EN&utm_medium=GSR&utm_content=US_UNDP_PaidSearch_Brand_English&utm_campaign=CENTRAL&c_src=CENTRAL&c_src2=GSR&gclid=CjwKCAjwk6-LBhBZEiwAOUUDp-4-GhCcHBNv-cUfwsogpaBGuRC7Fs-abRcoXngfNFuVjkJwgbRo3xoCbCwQAvD_BwE
CONTACT
igem@nu.edu.kz
Kabanbay batyr av., 53, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
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