Sustainable Development Goals Workshop in Malang, Java

​Malang, East Java | 17th – 18th, January 2017 | Herni Frilia
 
On January 17th – 18th, Bottle for Botol joined a workshop meeting in D’Sa, Dusun Sahabat Alam, Malang, East Java. It was organized by BIMA – Benih Matahari, an NGO with a focus on Education and Sustainable Living. The meeting was attended by 22 community groups, NGOs, and individuals with 33 total participants from all over Indonesia.

The objective of the meeting was to link each groups’ organisational goals with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and targets.
 
Sustainable Development Goals
In September 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The SDG’s are a revision of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) of 1992-2015, and are expected to be met in 2030.
 
The MDGs looked at economic, social, and environmental goals, and were mainly focused on developing countries. By 2015, global problems such as extreme poverty, climate change and inequality were continuing. As a result, it was agreed that global movements and ideas should be an agenda for all countries, NGOs and international organisations and so the SDGs were born, to build on progress made by the MDGs.
 
While the MDGs were linear and each goal stood alone, SDGs are more flexible. The 17 goals are linked to each other and represent the components of Sustainable Development: Natural; Economic; Social; and Wellbeing.
 
Why is it important to link to the SDGs?
 
NGO and communities work from the grassroots. They bring a vision and mission to tackle problems and empower people to improve their livelihoods. To know the agenda at a global level is important to see which specific goals we are helping to support, and to see which goals we can receive support from at a global level – for example, for knowledge-sharing, data or funding.
 
The Workshop
 
The workshop was started by reviewing our own NGO: our vision; our mission; our logo; our projects; the reason why we support this work; and to see whether or not our work is in line with global issues.
 
Understanding Our Concern
 
Each participant was asked to draw their NGOs logo on paper and rewrite their vision and mission, and present their work, project, logo meaning, vision and missions to the group. The aim was to understand our work and which issues we focus on.
 
Iceberg Pyramid Concept
 
Using the Iceberg Pyramid Concept, participants were invited to see the relevancy of their program to the global issue. This was important as most projects were happening at a grassroots level without considering deeply the larger problem they were tackling.
 
Using the Iceberg pyramid concept, BFB’s program can be understood as:
Event: Reducing single use plastic
Pattern: Single use plastic has become the daily need
System: There is no strong regulation, policy, or behavior change related to single use plastic consumption yet.
Mindset:
Assumption and value – single use plastic is widely practiced, easy to get, water proof, and cheap.
Worldview – Ocean debris or micro plastic is the global issue but not strong enough to be seen as a global problem yet.  Even in the SDGs, this issue was not mentioned as a global goal. 
 
 
Linking the SDGs to NGO goals
 
The next session was to link our focus issue to the SDGs and their targets. Since we had reviewed and identified the core focus of our organisations’, this was easily done. BFB is linked to several goals and targets:
 
GOALS: (3) GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Target: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
 
GOALS: (4) QUALITY EDUCATION
Target: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
 
GOALS: (6) CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION
Target: By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally
 
GOALS: (12) RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION & PRODUCTION
-         By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment
-         By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
-         By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature
 
 
GOALS: (14) LIFE BELOW WATER
Target: By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution
 
GOALS: (17) PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
-       Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
 
Sharing Session – Education for Sustainable Development
 
During the workshop special guest, Robert Steele joined us.  He is the Director at Sustainability Asia (SA), a Southeast Asia based consultancy company that works closely with national and local governments, NGOs, international agencies and private sector companies in the Asia-Pacific region to inspire, train, and enable successful integration of sustainability into organisational and community systems. He came to join the workshop as a volunteer to show his support to his Indonesian friends.
 
He ran an education game to explain sustainability in a practical, physical way. The most important thing in sustainable development is the balance of life. According to Sustainability Asia there are four components as compass of sustainability; Nature, Economy, Social, and Wellbeing. Those components are connected to each other. If one of them is unbalance the other will be influenced.
 
“Sustainability is a set of system conditions that allow humans to flourish.”
 
The game showed us that balance is important in sustainability, we have to stop when something is too much or do more when it is not enough, to have the possibility to keep going. People mindset is the core of sustainability. We must learn how to see an issue or problem from each component’s perspectives.
 
Networking supports
At the closing of the workshop, participants made a collage from the goal’s logo to be something represents their work. Then we separated into groups (education, community, and youth movement) to discuss ways their work would support SDG.
 
Bottle for Botol team as the part of education group agreed that education has important role to support SDG. Ten years from now, young generations will be the key actors who create change, and make the world a better, more sustainable, place to live.

Download the full report here:
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