GUST SPEARHEADS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PROJECT
KUWAIT CITY— Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) will host a public conference about social responsibility entitled THE CAUSE at its campus in Mishref from April 10-14. The conference is culmination of a year-long student-faculty project involving several public events, prominent community speakers, leading children’s charities, local advertising agencies, and a number of non-profit organizations and partners from across the nation.The conference will include a special gala ceremony on the evening of April 14 to present the Al-Shakoor Award for Lifetime Achievements in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility. Twenty of Kuwait’s most prominent companies with more than a decade of community service are nominated for the honor and an independent judging panel will determine the four winners in the areas of The Environment, Health, Education and Culture, and Social Welfare and Charity.Lead by the Mass Communication and Media (MCM) Department, THE CAUSE project has also coupled three local children’s charities together with three leading advertising and PR companies, as well as selected students and their clubs, in order to “compete for causes” during the month of March 2016. The three charitable teams used a Kuwait-based crowdfunding platform, www.jaribha.com, to promote their campaigns, and encourage the general public to make charitable contributions through a dedicated website. Using limited budgets, the teams raised over USD $62,000.00 (18,800.000 KD) in 31 days.The children’s charities included the Abeer2 Voluntary Group for the Mentally Disabled, the Kuwait Child Rights Society (KCRS), and the Kuwait Association of Learning Differences (KALD). Their campaigns were designed by the agencies Horizon FCB, Blu Lowe Marketing and Advertising and the Senyar Group Marketing and Branding. The campaigns aimed to educate society about these important local charities, as well as the process of crowdfunding, which provides non-profit organizations with alternative means to fundraising outside of the traditional reliance on corporate or government sponsors.MORE The campaigns launched on March 5 at The Scientific Center in Salmiya with over 1,000 attendees at THE CAUSE Children’s Carnival. The event included numerous children’s activities, including a live stage performance from the Iftah Ya Simisim television series characters (the Arabized version of Sesame Street).THE CAUSE is the culmination of an academic year’s efforts by students and faculty at the Gulf University for Science and Technology. It is organized jointly with the student-led Media Club and the PR Club, as well as dozens of student volunteers and others enrolled in courses within the MCM Department. For more information, visit https://thecause.gust.edu.kw.The Department uses a hands-on learning approach where students apply their skills and talents outside of the traditional classroom environment in projects involving local industries. Student-faculty teams organize conferences in a three-year sequence, each of which is dedicated to an area of emphasis within the department’s Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Mass Communication. These include Visual Communication, Radio and TV Broadcasting, and Public Relations and Advertising.In the 2013-2014 academic year, the department organized THE SEEN conference, which focused on Visual Communication. The following year it hosted THE SCRIPT conference which celebrated Kuwaiti pioneers in Radio, TV, Film, and Theatre. This year THE CAUSE is dedicated to Public Relations and Advertising with an emphasis on the topic of Social Responsibility. The Gulf University for Science and Technology began operation in 2002 as the first private university in Kuwait. It is based on an American-style model of higher education and aims to serve the increasing educational demands of Kuwait and the Gulf region. It currently hosts approximately 3,600 full-time students. For further information on the university, visit www.gust.edu.kw
