Promoting health through green infrastructure
22 February 2017
Promoting health and well-being in cities is a massive socio-ecological challenge. Tackling the complexities inherent in this work requires both integration of academic disciplines as well as partnerships that connect and empower knowledge producers, policy makers, implementers, and recipient communities.
From the 10-12 January 2017 a workshop was held in Kuching, Malaysia, bringing together 34 representatives from government, academia, community groups and civil society in Kuching to explore the topic of nature-based infrastructure in cities. This group consisted of 9 Cardiff University academics, a member of Natural Resources Wales, representatives from 16 different Malaysian organisations, and other international researchers. The three day workshop facilitated sharing of knowledge and experiences, synthesis of these contributions via systems thinking and place-based methods, and building of collaborations around research and project initiatives proposed by the participants.
The workshop forms part of the systems thinking and place-based methods for healthier Malaysian cities (SCHEMA) project, which aims to provide systems thinking and place-based methods as tools for enabling co-production of knowledge and co-design of solutions for healthier Malaysian cities.
The event was co-organised by the Sustainable Places Research Institute and the School of Medicine at Cardiff University and United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health, together with two Malaysian partner organisations: the National University of Malaysia (UKM) Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI) and the Penang Institute.
SCHEMA is funded by a British Council Newton-Ungku-Omar Institutional Links Grant. A second SCHEMA workshop on food systems and health is planned for late 2017.
