Universities Can Help in Asian Reconstruction
8 January 2005
Whilst we prepare for another year at the University, and
wrestle with the changes impacting on the sector, all of those
issues seem to pale almost to insignificance alongside the Asian
tsunami and the devastation it has wrought. Fishing villages,
luxury resorts, capital cities, towns and universities and all the
people associated with them have been helpless victims. It is a
human tragedy.
Many of us at the University have responded with individual
donations. The University itself is registered as a charitable
institution and can receive gifts and donations that are tax
deductible. These funds help the University grow at a faster rate
and offer more services.
In the course of a year we have a stream of requests for us to
support community events and charities but we have to be selective
who we support, and focus mainly on organisations whose aims are in
some way aligned with ours, and are involved in education or
economic and cultural advancement.
The human tragedy in Asia necessitates that we rethink the help
we can provide in a circumstance such as this, and we will provide
a substantial cash sum. It will detract from on-campus services
but I don't believe any student or member of staff would begrudge
helping directly when cash is needed most by so many victims.
Perhaps the way we can help most, however, is through
longer-term projects.
We have already forged links with Asian universities and
colleges and I suspect those links will now increase. There are
many ways in which students and staff through various projects can
help ameliorate the current plight of so many, whilst contributing
through visits or projects to longer-term reconstruction and
redevelopment.
As Dr Phillip Mahnken one of our staff has said on radio
interviews this week, this tragedy has the potential to bring
countries closer together, for Australia to strengthen its ties
with its neighbours, and perhaps even for civil conflicts and
terrorism to be given less fuel.
The help that Australia has already provided and promised is
magnificent and contradicts some of the xenophic outbursts against
multiculturalism that are such an embarrassment, unrepresentative
of much of Australia as they are, that have occurred in recent
years.
In the current Australian response, there is a sense that we are
all part of the same world and can respect and help those who are
suffering, regardless of race, religion, gender, age or class.
I hope that out of this disaster emerges a new spirit of hope
and cooperation to counter some of the dreadful insecurities that
have followed Afghanistan, New York and Iraq events.
This University, I suspect like most other Australian
universities will be looking to see how we can create a better
world out of this disaster that has rendered so many of us feeling
temporarily helpless.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast