From Classroom to Community: Forging Caring Leaders through Planetary Health Action
From Classroom to Community: Forging Caring Leaders through Planetary Health Action
In early 2024, the community service course for planetary health, which I taught, took a bold step by starting to work with the community at Desa Mentari. This initiative, the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Desa Mentari Community Programme, is committed to transformative changes in the locality by focusing intently on Education and Training and Community Development.
ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Desa Mentari: A Dual-Focus Approach
The Education and Training pillar is centred on integrating active community service into the university's academic curriculum, thereby fostering a new generation of empathetic and creative leaders while building the residents' own skill sets.
This effort is mirrored by the Community Development initiative, which is focused on immediate, tangible improvements to the quality of life for urban-poor residents. Key actions include enhancing living conditions, ensuring better access to essential medical and public services, actively creating employment opportunities for fairer income, and strengthening safety and security through robust, multi-sector partnerships (public, private, government, community, and environment). This dual approach ensures both long-term capacity building and critical short-term relief from multidimensional poverty issues.
Student Experience: Beyond the Classroom
Student involvement in the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Desa Mentari Community Programme offers a uniquely rich and transformative educational experience that extends far beyond traditional classroom learning. The core gains for participants are rooted in the practical application of knowledge, the development of essential twenty-first-century skills, and the cultivation of a robust sense of social purpose.
Foremost among these benefits is the opportunity for students to mature into the next generation of Caring and Creative Leaders. By tackling real-world problems like multidimensional poverty and insufficient public services, students move from theoretical concepts to practical execution. This hands-on engagement fosters leadership qualities, demanding innovation and problem-solving skills as they design and implement interventions directly impacting the community's quality of living conditions.
Furthermore, the project's structure, built on a "Quintuple-helix" partnership involving public, private, government, community, and environmental sectors, provides invaluable exposure to complex, multi-stakeholder collaboration. Navigating these diverse interests teaches students negotiation, interdisciplinary thinking, and the complexity required to achieve sustainable social impact.
Crucially, the programme also enhances academic rigour through embedded Research and Development. Students are integral to the Community Observatory Cohort Study, a longitudinal research effort designed to meticulously track socioeconomic, health, and environmental changes. This participation allows students to engage in genuine scholarly inquiry, where they gather and analyse data to create evidence-based solutions. This experience of informing targeted policy interventions is fundamentally different from classroom case studies, cementing their understanding of research methodology and its direct utility in creating sustainable solutions.
Finally, by having community service integrated into the curriculum, students' efforts are academically validated, ensuring their civic engagement contributes meaningfully to their formal academic record while aligning their educational pursuits with global frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Summary
The ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Desa Mentari Community Programme, initiated in early 2024 as part of the planetary health course, operates on two vital pillars: Education and Training and Community Development. The former integrates active community service into the university curriculum to cultivate empathetic leaders and build resident skill sets, while the latter focuses on immediate improvements for urban-poor residents, such as enhancing living conditions, accessing services, and creating fairer employment. Student participation offers a profoundly transformative educational experience, allowing them to apply knowledge, develop into Caring and Creative Leaders by managing real-world interventions, and gain exposure to complex, multi-sector Quintuple-helix partnerships. Crucially, the programme embeds Research and Development through the Community Observatory Cohort Study, enabling students to engage in genuine scholarly inquiry to generate evidence-based solutions. Ultimately, this integration validates their civic engagement academically while directly aligning their learning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Lyon Laxman
School of Communication and Media Studies
@email