Vice-Chancellorship for Institutional Relations, Social Responsibility and Culture; and Office for Solidarity and Cooperation.
UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE MADRID (UAM) has a long and lasting commitment to contribute to international development and sustainable challenges by mobilizing academic staff, professionals and students. From 2006 to 2013 and in collaboration with UN Volunteers, UAM lead an international university volunteer program through a national network of universities committed with the Millennium Development Goals which had a huge success. With the 2030 Agenda UAM has put in place a specific strategy and is actively contributing to create SDGs awareness, synergies and innovative solutions. In this context, UAM is now launching the second edition of the SDGs Mobility Program and Global Citizenship Awareness, which offers the possibility to university students to participate in local community projects in Latin America and Africa. In order to participate students must reflect about sustainable development challenges and propose ideas on projects SDG aligned and developed in the university. The best applications and profiles are awarded with a grant to participate in local entities and knowing first-hand about innovative projects with our local partners (universities and community projects).With this program, UAM wants to instil values, knowledge and competencies on human rights, social justice, diversity, gender equality and sustainability. Educate on global citizenship. Create awareness about the incidence of the A2030 on development challenges and the role of the university in the process. Identify the social impact of driven initiatives targeting the SDG’s. In this initiative, SDGS are used as a learning objective in itself, but also as an instrument to understand how each student can contribute from their academic background.
Through the participation in this program UAM expects the students to be able to understand opportunities and difficulties in addressing sustainable development solutions and be able to comprehend local realities. Typical successful itinerary will be that one of a student that once returned from their service to their occupations (studies, or training) are able to apply their field experience and switch of their mind-set. Also students are asked to write a thorough report about their experience with specific reflections about the SDGs implementation.
The SDG framework is applied from the very design of the initiative. To apply to the program students need to write an initial memory about the implementation of the Agenda 2030 with personal reflections and inputs on the SDGs. The aim of this is that once in the field they are able to size weather the Agenda is applicable, how is being applied, scope and challenges of its implementation.
During their service and once finished, students analyse and reflect reality using the SDG as a tool or way of approaching things. A successful experience will be a student that is able to use the SDG framework but also to go beyond the SDG framework when needed. SDGs are used not only as development goals but also as a tool for learning and analysing the reality.
Mobility programs have common challenges that is to create partnerships and network with local entities. UAM has a long experience with peer universities in Latin America and África, as well as entities with a proven itinerary in community work with relevant impact in development. The program has strong and reliable partners to participate in this program (public and private universities, and specialised development NGO).
The next step in the program will be to include more placement to cover more SDG themes. Also including a south-south perspective on the students exchanges will be a desirable improvement, and a practice that UAM has successfully put in place in the past.
