Cadet College Hasan Abdal collaborate on reducing reliance on fossil fuels

Posted: 21 April 2021

Overview

Cadet College Hasan Abdal in Pakistan hosted a online Symposium to raise awareness of their immediate surroundings, to spur critical thinking and evolve their minds to envision eco-friendly ways to lead their lives while preserving the environment. The aim was to give students an insight into the present situation of our planet and interacting with peers from different parts of the world helped create a sense of solidarity and environmental responsibility amongst the students.

Planning

The entire Symposium was organized and run by three grade 12 students. The idea of organizing a Symposium on Environmental Stewardship came up when we started our in-campus campaign of massive tree plantation. Considering it one of top priorities towards our planet, the conception was finally materialized bringing all stakeholders together.

The planning committee made maximum use of available resources and time to compile comprehensive research material and acquaint themselves fully with the theme of the symposium. This process included memorizing statistics, names of important environmental scientists and entrepreneurs and coming up with eco-friendly solutions. They also made the official presentation and did a considerable amount of homework on the guest speakers too. Finally, Student Committee members mutually discussed and compiled an assessment table, in which the criteria to examine the content of the participants’ speeches was finalized. Several mock runs of the conference were made to better understand the environment we wanted to create for our participants.

Details

Our host student, Sarim Malik, introduced the topic and gave an overview of the event. Each participating school representative shared views on different environmental hazards caused by reliance on fossil fuels and provided viable solutions.

Our two keynote speakers were: Kamran Asif, a UK based Sustainable Development expert spoke about Climate change, the historical background of Climate Action campaigns and the need for youth engagement for sustainable solutions; and Sajith Wijesuriya, is a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado, USA. He spoke about the concept of Sustainable Economic Development. He emphasized on adopting clean energy solutions, using degradable materials, and applying circular economy concepts.

The student host then summarized the learnings, thanking the speakers and participants.

Challenges

Organizing the conference entailed a great amount of dedication and commitment towards planning the event, this required members of RS Student Committee to seek official permission from the college administration to allow them to skip some of the important events in their daily routine. During academic work, the boys had to occasionally work between classes. Managing their studies along with the research work and planning of the symposium was, indeed, quite a challenge. Besides this, provision of a consistent Internet supply was quite non-viable, and we had our ups and downs, but we managed to resolve those issues and come out on top to deliver our best.

Impact 

To us, the casual intellectual style that we had adopted for the speech delivery really ended up having a positive effect on the participants as they delivered their speeches without being conscious of tone, formality etc. Everybody had a different take on the global crisis; therefore, there were many innovative solutions floating through the House. This ended up helping students to expand their horizons and think beyond the conventional sense of preserving the environment. Students participated in a very practical course of action, despite the virtual nature of the conference and the essence of the Symposium helped galvanize their thinking. This resulted in a proposition of very feasible solutions.

Long Term Outcomes

Cadet College Hasanabdal has been recognized on a global scale as an institute with potential to lead efficiently and enact upon the RS IDEALS with great zeal and enthusiasm. It is safe to say that the event was a success, and the participants took away something that would remain with them forever. With the positive feedback generated from our first official symposium, we will be delighted to host such thought provoking events again in the future.

Advice

• Start planning at least a month before it is due, because approaching a certain degree of perfection consumes a lot of time.
• Get more students involved to help plan the event and share the work load.
• The team should leave no stone unturned in researching the theme that applies to such events, so that they are able to question and interact with participants, competently.

Author: Adeel Javed – RS Representative Sarim Malik – Head RS Student Committee Muhammad Fakhir – Deputy Head Muhammad Farazdaq – Executive Member