PE – ISFiT Norway
On February 5 – 15, 2015, student of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Faculty of Life Sciences and Technology, Swiss German University, Aliya Dharaningtyas, attended The International Student Festival in Trondheim (ISFiT) at Trondheim, Norway.
ISFiT is the world’s largest student festival with around 450 students from all over the world gathering in Trondheim. Each festival has a theme relating to social and political topics with international relevance. In 2015, the theme is corruption.
The core of the festival is the workshop. It facilitates the participants closer discussion, providing time for reflection and giving an opportunity for each people to go deeper into the issues discussed. Since Aliya is student of Pharmaceutical Engineering, she was chosen to be part of Health workshop. The health workshop mainly talks about how corruption in healthcare systems and in the pharmaceutical industry affects global health and the consequences of corruption in healthcare to people of the world. The aim of the workshop is to create a friendly and tolerant atmosphere without any barriers based on racial, cultural or ethnic differences in which exchanges of experience and knowledge take place. It teaches every participant to keep an open mind, show respect and listen to what others have to say.
Trading ideas with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama came to Trondheim and talked about better a future to the young people. A central point of the Dalai Lama’s speech was that when dealing with corrupt or otherwise violent people, one must not isolate them – in doing so one make matters worse. “If you have the willpower, you can change the world” – Dalai Lama.
The Student Peace Prize. Established in 1999 as an ISFiT initiative, and awarded every other year and given to students or student organizations who work to promote peace, human rights and democracy. The Student Peace Prize awarded their prize to Aayat Al-Qurmezi. She is a student from Bahrain, who has arrested and tortured for reading out two pro-freedom poems in 2011, during the early days of the ongoing Bahraini uprising. In her poems, She criticized the royal family of Bahrain for the lack of elections, freedom of speech and human dignity.
ISFiT Parliament. “What three measures should the world’s future leaders implement in order to reduce the values lost to corruption by 50% by 2030?” The ISFiT Parliament was developed so as to give the festival a conclusion – a final statement that remains when the festival is over. The answer to the question will be given to United Nation in order to reduce corruption by 50% within 2030. Once the solutions have been decided upon by group discussion and voting, we agree to send the letter to the UN.
Through cultural events In addition to the workshops, ISFiT highlights the festival theme through a vast cultural program consisting of concerts, plenary sessions, art exhibitions, performing arts and ceremonies. The culture program offers an extensive range of events for the visiting participants, but is also available for the population of Trondheim.
Note: Aliya is the one with green dress in this picture
