BSUxGAIA Seminar Series: Reshaping Social Policy

The Global Awareness and Impact Alliance (GAIA) and the Brunei Students’ Union in the United Kingdom and Eire (BSUnion) jointly organised the final seminar of a three-part seminar series at the Institute of Leadership, Innovation, and Advancement (ILIA), Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD). This series titled ‘Building a Post-Pandemic Global Society’ aimed to combine the novel ideas of university students with the opinions of an expert speaker in an effort to build preparedness to face a post-pandemic world. The theme for the seminar centred on how the COVID-19 virus is ‘Reshaping Social Policy’; transmission control measures worldwide have dramatically altered human activity, thus forcing us to reflect on a number of pressing societal concerns. 


The seminar opened with welcoming remarks from GAIA Co-Founder Naveed Khan and President of BSUnion Abdullah Umar. The speakers for this seminar were undergraduate students Izzati Azhan (BSc Planning and Real, University of Manchester), Hamizan Iman (Law LLB, Cardiff University), Nabeelah Abu Bakar (BSc MORSE, University of Southampton), and Mu’izz Abdul Khalid (PhD Candidate in Southeast Asian Studies, National University Singapore). Moderated by GAIA Co-Founder Dr. Asyura Salleh, the seminar explored how the viral pandemic has encouraged a reimagining of urban cities as greener sites for efficient and sustainable lifestyles. The seminar also touched on how public systems such as healthcare can be affected by concepts of bias. Moreover, the seminar raised awareness on gender-motivated behaviour that has increased during this pandemic. The audience was also given food for thought about how we can actively centre ourselves as agents of our own histories and cultures to allow for an unrestrained production of knowledge. 
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All three seminars were open to both the public and students. GAIA and BSUnion also express their deepest thanks to those who have attended our Seminars Series on ‘Building a Post-Pandemic Global Society’.