In the oikos Pathfinder Session at the Student Summit for Sustainability in Regina, Canada, 20 international students designed their personal sustainability entrepreneurship projects.

Running a sustainability project as a student can be a thrilling and exciting experience - if done right, motivation can really 'make a difference'. In the oikos Pathfinder Session, students can find their 'change potential', and find their own path to sustainability.

Inspiring students to design their path to sustainability

At the Student Summit for Sustainability in Regina, Canada, Katharina Beck, oikos International president, directed the first Pathfinder Session. During three hours, the highly motivated participants were guided to develop their own sustainability projects. They undertook a mental journey through their project, including  "Packing your provisions", "Mapping your way", "Talking to a tour guide" and a virtual "Starting your journey", where the 'six thinking hats' method was applied for reflecting on the project paths from different perspectives.

Some of the participants already had concrete project proposals in their minds before the workshop, others came up with their idea incited by the Pathfinder Session.

"After this workshop I discovered that I have to consider a lot of more things in my way"

One of the motivated students is Haytham Atef from Cairo University, Egypt. In his project "Arab Youth Dreams for Sustainable Development (AYD)" he envisions to empower the Egyptian youth to be able to change the future for themselves and the coming genereations. 

He and his student fellows want to train young people on sustainable development and create a role for them to contribute to their countries' sustainable development process. Four main programmes are planned in the fields of Business, Applied Science, General Awareness Campaigns and Volunteering projects.

Haytham concludes that the Pathfinder Session

 

"organized my thoughts to a great extent. I applied for the Student Summit with this project. After the Pathfinder Session I discovered that I have to consider a lot of things in my way. The six thinking hat session had a great impact, it's the first time for me to use this creative thinking technique myself. It looked through different lenses and discover new issues and challenges."

 

"Awesome experience"

Sakeb Arefin from Bangladesh studies at the University of Tokio. He realised that he wants to improve the living conditions of his home country and designed his project "Making Better Lives" during the workshop. In several stages of his life he wants to use his different potantials as a student and as a business man.

The workshop helped him make his path concrete. Amongst other advices and perspectives, he realised that he needs a concrete business model of the social enterprise and leave the idea behind that he can finance the plan by himself:

 

"It was an awesome experience to take part in the session."

 

If you want to include the oikos Pathfinder Sessions in your conference or network meeting, or want to be informed about future sessions, contact Katharina Beck at beck@dont-want-spam.oikosinternational.org.