Access4all symposium highlights southern-led climate education in Dhaka

ACCESS4ALL hosted a symposium entitled 'A Climate-Educated Future: Advancing Southern-Led Climate Education and Community-Centred Knowledge' at BRAC Centre Inn, Mohakhali.

The event was organised by the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), BRAC University—the coordinating institute of the project—on behalf of the ACCESS4ALL consortium. Organisers said the symposium aimed to highlight achievements, key findings, and resources developed through the project.

Funded under the Erasmus+ CBHE (Capacity Building for Higher Education) grants, ACCESS4ALL focuses on co-creating short-course curricula and compiling resources led by Global South institutions to support communities, professionals, and young learners with skills for locally relevant climate solutions, organisers said.

The consortium includes three higher education institutions in Bangladesh—BRAC JPGSPH, BRAC University, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), and the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)—alongside European partners Maastricht University and the University of Heidelberg.

The programme opened with remarks from Dr Laura Reichenbach, dean of BRAC JPGSPH and director of the Centre of Excellence for Science of Implementation and Scale-Up (CoE-SISU). She said collaboration between BRAC JPGSPH and BRAC University has supported international partnerships, including with the European Union.

Professor Arshad Mahmud Chowdhury, Pro Vice-Chancellor of BRAC University, and Baiba Zarina, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Bangladesh, also spoke. Zarina said climate change is 'an economic, health, and justice issue' and stressed the importance of building climate-educated citizens.

In the session entitled 'Southern-led curriculum development – reshaping learning outcomes', organisers said Selima Sara Kabir, Senior Research Associate at BRAC JPGSPH, provided an overview of the project and introduced the Green Learning Hub as a collaborative platform. Nayma Akter Jahan, Lecturer and Research Associate at ULAB, and Saquib A Khan, Lecturer at IUB, discussed the curriculum development process.

A subsequent session, 'Learning with, not about, communities', focused on the co-production of knowledge materials. Protyasha Ghosh, Research Associate at BRAC JPGSPH, presented on the co-production process, while seven community ambassadors from Khulna, Satkhira, and Chuadanga shared reflections on their participation.

Dr Rumana Sultana, Lecturer at the University of Rajshahi and a former consortium member from IUB, highlighted the importance of community-centred learning. Mikhail Idris, Learning Designer at Learning Design Studio, and Rubaiyat Ashrafee, Coordinator of ACCESS4ALL at BRAC JPGSPH, also spoke on community-led learning and the iterative design of knowledge materials.

The final segment featured a panel discussion on 'Southern-led curricula and community co-production as a way forward', chaired by Dr Golam Samdani Fakir, Director of the Learning and Teaching Innovation Centre at BRAC University. Panellists included Dr J S M (Anja) Krumeich, Professor at Maastricht University; Dr Samiya A Selim, Visiting Professor at ULAB; Dr K A Rabbani, Dean of IUB; Dr Md Nadiruzzaman, Assistant Professor at Maastricht University; and Dr Sabina Faiz Rashid, Professor and Project Director of ACCESS4ALL at BRAC JPGSPH.

The discussion was moderated by Selima Sara Kabir and focused on South-led knowledge creation and the role of consortium-based collaboration, according to the organisers.

Stakeholders from academia, research organisations, government, and NGOs attended. The programme concluded with closing remarks from Rubaiyat Ashrafee, who thanked national and international partners, as well as the community ambassadors.