LECTURE 3 : SEJAHTERA AND ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN SDG

 

SEJAHTERA CONCEPT

My lecturer first asks us what our definition of sejahtera is because sejahtera can mean a lot of things, such as peacefulness, harmony, and many more. "Sejahtera is a rather multilayered concept that conveys a deeper meaning than any single word can convey. As such it has no equivalent in other languages, neither can it be accurately translated into different languages due to its close cultural leaning and nuances to the local Malay(sian) tradition." Sejahtera is more associated with the practise of having a peaceful well-being or even coexistence. It is suggested that sejahtera embodies the achievement of a quality of life that is both sustainable and healthy as a way of life. Here i attach the definition of Sejahtera from Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak :

"Sejahtera is more associated with the practice of having a balanced well being or even co-existing with common shared values and prosperity. It is implied that the achievement of quality of life that is both sustainable as well as balanced is embodied in Sejahtera as a way of life."

-Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak

From this lesson, the greatest revelation I have had about Sejahtera is that Sejahtera is just a way of living that encourages harmony and progression. However, people like me today normalise our lives just to have a boring life by just studying to graduate from colleges, doing 5-9 jobs, paying insurance, spending our money on bills, with no vacations and time for ourselves and we turned 60. in the snap of a finger. The way everybody lives, because we are so focused on finding money instead of happiness, is not a healthy way of life. Are we still evenly balanced? being a best student solely on academics without knowing the things outside the books sometimes is not enough. Thus, this is where the University play their role to apply the concept of "Sejahtera" to their students and make a relation between the role of the university and the SDG. 

(some of the flagship in IIUM)

In IIUM we have the IIUM Insan Sejahtera, encapsulates four elements (IIICE, FPK, MAS, SDG) with the aim of goal to humanized education professionals and scholars of distinction by integrating quality of faith (iman), knowledge (‘ilm) and good character (akhlaq). IIUM have made a lot of things related to sustainable development. The most famous activity that IIUM have been done is flagship. By joining these projects, students for sure gained lots of benefit from it as they get to learn new things through discovery and their own experiences. In my opinion, for student growth, IIUM Insan Sejahtera is very systematic and thorough because it covers every aspect of life. In addition, I just knew that there are several flagship programmes coordinated by IIUM, such as Peduli Asli, Peace and Justice in Community, and others to achieve the SDG objectives. I think it is important to do all the flagship programmes continuously and to develop them from time to time. All the universities in this country should make this effort as they play a major role in achieving the SDG.

Lastly, Madam has assigned us to make a poster regarding a flagship where we need to pick a flagship from the IIUM website. For our group we do the "Peace and Justice in community" organized by AIKOL department. Here i attach our poster 😊