December 11, 2023
By Dr. Shirley Yeung
On Dec. 4th 2023, Dr. Shirley Yeung (Project Convener/ Designer/ Implementor and Chair, community Education, ICENECDEV / Head, School of Business, Gratia Christian College HK) participated in the United Nations Climate Change conference in Dubai. She along with Mr. Eric Fongoh (Co-founder, International Centre for Environmental Education and Community Development, ICENECDEV) participated in a fruitful presentation and discussion in Green Zone, Education Hub in Dubai with panelists – Steve Willis, Malaysia, Denis Baden, UK, and Martha Kovaroka’s Team, Czech Republic and a diversified group of participants. This project is shorlisted by the Ministry of Education, UAE. Through discussion, it has been realised that Art/ Content Creation, Music and Story telling techniques are needed with on-going actions to visualise the mission of Cop28 and SDGs.
NFT as a service fundraising
Among the main projects is the one that aims to educate the community on the use of NFT as a Service for Fundraising to benefit SDG/ ESG/ IEP related activities. It is to encourage the building up of a community of Art (Content Creation) Technology as well as Business. The NFT objects are Asian-style paintings by youth and women from Kenya and Cameroon. Youth and women in these countries who participated in this project have learned how to paint in Chinese. Calligraphy style and the subjects of these paintings are endangered species and plants such as elephants, lotus, and fish.
This project is a good example of employing a technological platform to educate the community on SDG/ESG in a meaningful way. In the 3rd batch of collections, students in Pakistan via NGO Shehersaaz have also been involved. It welcomes bids for these NFT paintings and the bidder who gets the highest number of NFT paintings will receive a physical painting donated by Dr. Shirley Yeung, winner of a Young Asian Artist Award in 2022/ Representative of SYART Gallery, Beijing, China and founder of this project/ Chair, Community Education and Asia Ambassador, ICENECDEV.
In the past three years, Dr. Shirley has used Zoom to engage youth and women in Kenya, Cameroon, Philippines, Pakistan with physical solo Chinese Calligraphy Painting exhibition (Tai Kwun, Heritage Building, Fringe Club, Anita Chan-Lai Ling Gallery, Hong Kong, SYART Gallery, Beijing, China with physical demonstration with professors / students of UNPRME Chapters, RMER Conference, Portugal, Sept. 2023 about creating awareness of art, culture, technology (blockchain and NFT) to accelerate SDGs for impacts. The project of Dr. Shirley Yeung, Asia Ambassador, ICENECDEV has been selected by 1) UNESCAP, SDG Acceleration Pavilion, Bangkok, March, 2023, 2) UNESCO Bangkok, Entrepreneurial Education Conference, Oct., 2023 3) Cop28, Green School, Dubai, Dec. 4, 2023 and 4) UNPRME UAE Chapter REMR Conference, University of Dubai, Dec. 4, 2023 with ongoing book publication – foreword co ntributed by Eric Fongoh, Co-founder, ICENECDEV.
About the author
Dr. Shirley Yeung is Head of School of Business of Gratia Christian College, Hong Kong.
