Students to help realise Dubai's green vision

Al Maleeha School students during the Dubai Vision Orientation Day. - KT photo by Dhes Handumon

Using solar energy to harvest food produce in schools and utilising plastic bottles to grow and house plants are just some of the ideas being put forward by UAE students taking part in the second Dubai Vision Competition.
This year, more than 300 students from public and private schools across the country will come together to create joint projects on their shared vision of sustainability in the UAE.
This is the first time both public and private sector students will be partnering to put forward their ideas, which will enforce the theme of Dubai Expo 2020, 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future'.
There will be three key areas of focus for this year's competition; solar energy, energy and water conservation and green mobility.
All 65 participating schools will be given a monetary fund to help support their projects, likely Dh1,000, Zainab Al Baloushi, English specialist at the Curriculum Development Unit of the Ministry of Education, told Khaleej Times. The winning project will receive a larger cash sum.
Additionally, this year, the competition will also be awarding a cash prize to the group that works best as a collaboration.
The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding (SMCCU), in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Architaly Green Energy DMCC, will be supporting the projects.
"Expo 2020 is all about bringing people from different backgrounds together and this year we want students to work hand in hand on projects that will make Dubai a better place to live in," Al Baloushi said. Students Safiya Hussein and Naila Imam from Al Sadiq Islamic English School in Dubai are two of the 300 students taking part this year. "Our idea is to focus on the topic of solar energy. We already nurture sustainability practice in our school and we have a green house where we grow food. We were thinking to extend our green house and add a solar unit to help grow more plants," Imam told Khaleej Times.
For Hussein, the competition is just another chance to put forward her ideas for sustainable practice in the UAE.
"I have previously taken part in another project at the American University of Dubai where we made posters on ways to promote green living, so this is something I have an active interest in."
Over at Al Maleiha School in Sharjah, a group of nine male students have already cemented their project. "We want to address the issue of plastic bottle waste in our school," Mohammed Haseeb said. "We noticed that during school break times, there are a lot of plastic bottles being thrown in the trash and not recycled. This is really a big problem. So we are going to collect those bottles, maybe 200-300 each day and then we want to use them as plant pots to decorate the school."
Helping support the projects this year is David Provenzani, director of ArchItaly Green Energy.
He said the opportunity to take part in the Dubai Vision Competition is a necessity for students nowadays.
"Kids need to understand how the world is and how it will change. It's actually a matter of future car-eer choice now too, not just saving the world. By 2030, 50 per cent of current jobs will be gone but jobs in the sustainability field will be at the fore."
The deadline for submissions of the first report on project development will be June 6 and on November 15 the award ceremony and projects' showcase will commence.
All projects submitted - whether the winning project or not - will be exhibited at the SMCCU and Abdallah Al Serkal, SMCCU founder, said he is looking forward to seeing how students from diff-erent schools and backgrounds work together.
"From a personal perspective, I'm looking forward to seeing the projects that focus on solar energy as in a country like the UAE that is constantly developing, this is an absolute need when it comes to building infrastructure."
kelly@khaleejtimes.com