Taiwan in My Eyes – 3A Alliance

邱晨 (Rachel)、Achille (艾家齊)

通常我們學生到一家公司去，不管是去參訪也好，實習也好，總會有不同的感想。這個感想呢，會帶著咱們去瞭解外界以及上班族的生涯。而此次Taiwan in My Eyes – Where is SDGs ?更讓我們打開眼界。
五天的活動以組隊方式進行，期間由主辦單位帶領我們前往數家知名標竿企業進行參訪，五天中也涵蓋大量的自由時間，供我們探索永續在臺灣的各面向，其中自選點選擇須與聯合國發布之17項永續發展目標有關連性。
每隊四人的國籍皆須不同且必須是同校生，同時要包含一位本國籍學生。通過篩選階段的十二個隊伍，將一起尋找永續在哪兒，了解國際最新流行永續發展趨勢，及臺灣實務上的應用成效。
我們這一組叫 3A Alliance，指的是 Asia, America與Africa A開頭的這3個州的連接，因爲 Rachel來自東亞，Luis 和 Diego 來自南美洲，Achille 來自西非，我們是臺灣大學報名的兩個隊伍之一，也是2018 探索臺灣120h – 永續在哪兒的第二名。

3A Alliance隊員：(左起) Achille、Luis、邱晨和Diego

在此想分為探索主題_永續發展以及團隊合作、文化交流兩部分，分享我們五天的行程與參加感想，並推薦這個活動給大家。
若不是這個活動，我們或許也不會注意到聯合國永續發展十七大目標正在被各大企業重視並落實著。這些理念看似淺顯易懂，但採納其為公司的經營方針，為永續發展盡心盡力，實屬不易。以環境保護、社會進步、經濟發展為三大主軸的永續發展目標，在這幾日的參訪中可見一斑。然而許多細節，是否能被歸於環境保護的範疇，我們不敢苟同，也許是還不夠深入了解，在釐清之前想必少不了一番思辯了。

聯合國17項永續發展目標 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

友達光電、日月光楠梓加工區，介紹的重點皆為水資源的淨化再利用，特別的是號稱零廢水排放的友達光電，用詳細的廢水處理流程證明其名不虛傳。中鼎集團主營環境工程。中華航空介紹員各個英文流利，自然為我們理解航空發展史、當今的營運機制以及安全為上的理念增色不少。臺塑六輕廠強調無空氣汙染、無水汙染、無生態環境的破壞、更無附近居民的健康危害之虞，但在我們有限的知識裡，看那泛著祖母綠光澤的麥寮港海水，裡頭是否真如他所說有海豚有珊瑚呢?從煙囪裡冒出的團團白色煙霧，是否真如他所說僅是水蒸氣呢?而空氣中的陣陣汽油味，是載我們參觀的遊覽車所致，或者廠區本身的氣味呢?

旅程中，處處是等著我們吸收的新知識，也個個都待我們仔細思考、審慎檢驗。
文化交流、團隊合作是這個活動的宗旨之一，也無庸置疑的在準備過程和旅途中完整體現。臺灣人擔起了翻譯和嚮導的義務兼責任，外籍同學提供多元的思考面向，在溝通中成長，磨合中砥礪。各自的收穫與反思在報告書中娓娓道出，充實與疲憊剪輯出影片中精采的瞬間，互相包容抑或相處融洽則一併轉化為照片上燦爛的笑顏。
今日能夠回顧這些成果，首當感謝系上CEBP讓我們四位隊員有機會相識，感謝提供此活動資訊的系辦，熱心傳授經驗的周家蓓教授和曾獲冠軍的學長鼎力相助。除此之外，也要向主辦單位中鼎教育基金會用心策畫此活動的員工們道聲感謝。盼每位參與者感動能延續，精神能繼續傳承。

Diego (狄亞哥)、 Luis (柯路易)、Achille (艾家齊)

3A Alliance group is formed by Rachel Chiu from Taiwan, Diego from Honduras, Luis from Paraguay, and Achille from Burkina Faso. Having a multicultural group had a positive impact in our work. All four of us come from different backgrounds, and therefore, we all have different points of views and ideas to which we shared to create a more dynamic and interesting work. Something to mention from us, is that we are all currently studying Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University. This is not the first time that we join to work together; the newly created Civil Engineering Buddy Program at NTU brought us together the first time and since then we have been doing in-school and out-school activities together. As Civil Engineering students we understand the importance of creating a better future and we believe this was the perfect opportunity to continue our path for our common goal.

The reason why 3A Alliance decided to join SDGs “2018 Taiwan in My Eyes 120hr” is that we appreciate this country very much. Taiwan has been a good home for us and it was time to show the world the beauty of it, and there is no better way to promote Taiwan’s beauty than showing the world how this island cares about sustainability and what are they doing to become a better place.
Through this project we had the opportunity to visit some companies and touristic places which promotes SDGs. We learned many things from all these sited visits, but something important to mention is all the different people we met during these visits. The diversity of universities and countries made it a more interesting and productive trip, since we had the opportunity to learn with and from them. Hopefully they will become future partners of us in these long road to a more equitable, peaceful and sustainable world.

We are proud of our work done during these five days of site visits as we became young ambassadors of Taiwan by introducing this beautiful country and sharing to the world the progress made in SDGs so far.
Sustainable Development Goals is an ambitious cross-cultural effort that requires partnership between governments, the private sector, and civil society to achieve the main goal of making this world a better place to live. A lot of effort has been made to realize this dream, and the result is a set of 17 goals to be achieved in a time span of 15 years, ending in 2030. Therefore, all countries united must tackle challenges and work together to alleviate the environmental, economic and social concerns that affect us every day. This could be achieved by working constantly in the improvement of poverty reduction, equity, social progress and environmental sustainability.

The pre-selected places by the projects committee were located in northern, central and southern Taiwan. Taking advantage of the opportunity given to be at different locations of Taiwan (Taipei, Taoyuan, Kaohsiung and Tainan), 3A Alliance decided to make a good use of the time and money and search for places around those cities to promote the different SDGs.

The self-selected places of the site visits during these five days were decided based on our focus during this project; which was: Quality Education, SDG4. Improving education on important topics such as SDGs can help our society achieve the goal of becoming a sustainable world. Searching for a variety of topics was our main goal, that way we could show the world by the use of social media that Taiwan is a country that is working to achieve those 17 goals established by the UN. Luckily for us, Taiwan has found the way of connecting various SDGs in one specific place all while educating its people.

More attention is currently being paid to the concept of sustainability. After all, being sustainable not only makes sense, it is also necessary. The companies we visited are already aware of this, so they are intensely working on alternative options that combine production and environmental care. But still, we recognize that educating for a sustainable world is the key for future generations to survive.
Educate for sustainability is transmit knowledge and habits to students for them to build a healthy future for them community and the planet. Sustainability education should start at primary school, as we know children learn faster, and the creativity and curiosity of them shall be the key to solve problems. Schools don’t have to create lessons dedicated solely to the environment and energy to teach them about these issues. The point is that this knowledge can be diffused in core subjects like math, science and even literacy lessons. By this way children get excited to learn about real life issues and the prospect of making a change.

The next step is implementation. Many great plans have come and gone without robust implementation. For a plan to go from paper to populace, the timing has to be right; the rationale for change has to be compelling; the results have to be visible, desirable and doable for all, and the political will has to be persistence. Sustainability Education and Environmental Education are mature fields of inquiry. We found very interesting that some companies that we visited had already slowly implement the participation of students in sustainability projects.
We are very thankful to be part of this competition, we learned a lot about possible solutions and plans that are already in progress. Taiwan, always being an agent of change for the world, we feel very lucky to has the opportunity to live in this country and we are determined to absorb as much knowledge as possible, so by this manner being able to contribute in this project by the anyplace we arrive from.