Jingyao Wu
Monash University
Gitanjali Bedi
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To turn the knowledge of sustainable development into practice, Gobeyond adopts a teaching model that combines online and offline. Co-Lib, an online cloud library, is built to provide knowledge of social issues that are deeply matched with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and an open encyclopedia on social innovation. Based on social issues that arise in Co-Lib, Gobeyond searches real stories and examples of various social innovations on a global scale to set up offline study groups. Wang (Personal Communication, January 28, 2021) said that “We come to the local area under the guidance and explanation of the people who solve the local social issues. We go to the scene to visit the results of their solution and listen to his practice story.”
So far, Co-Lib contains four certain sections and ten social topics, each of which is linked to several SDGs. For example, “eco-friendly” is linked with SDG 13 on climate action and SDG 15 on life on land, “gender & sexuality” with SDG 5 on gender equity and SDG 10 on reduce inequalities, “city & countryside” with SDG 13 on climate action. Under each topic, relevant knowledge and material are logically organized and classified. Correspondingly, the themes of study tours organized by Gobeyond include “low-carbon travel” in Slovenia, “explore the power of women” in India, “water resources protection” in Qingshan Village, and so on.
Ruoyun Wang and her co-founder Jieying Zheng met and became friends with the same charity organization. During that working time, there is a group of people who create positive changes when facing social problems, people who repair ancient villages, who accompany left-behind children, who train the disabled to make coffee, but their deeds are obscure. they want to find them and go to the place where the change takes place, from seeing to participating, and then to becoming a change. Later, they were inspired by the social enterprise model in a B Crops China campaign, thus Gobeyond was born.
Interest is the best teacher to learn. The novel business model of study tour combined with the online library attract many people's eyes. “as of today, 50 volunteers have joined to the construction of Co-Lib, these 50 people are the biggest gain of this project.” Wang (Personal Communication, January 28, 2021) believes “Social innovation is still a minority culture, there are many channels for the dissemination of social issues, but the fragmentation is very serious. Through logical leadership and scientific summary, the threshold for people understanding sustainability can be reduced.”
This innovation is contributing to SDG 4: Quality Education, especially SDG 4.7, directly through study tour that breaks the traditional way and uses experiential education, and indirectly through the online platform for browsing expertise and reference books for learning skills, popularizing sustainable lifestyle and concept and enhancing citizens' awareness.
The innovation of Co-Lib has also broadened new markets, there are two derivative products. One is that Gobeyond and a bookstore named Yanjiyou have jointly launched a set of physical books list about sustainability, which contains ten books that are closely related to the ten topics of Co-Lib, the other one is audiobooks for online courses. Furthermore, Gobeyond has also attracted the attention of local institutions. In addition to providing study tours for the individual customer, Gobeyond also customized activities for these governments, foundations, and universities. According to statistics, by January 2021, Gobeyond has completed 42 customized study tour projects (Gobeyond, 2021b).
During the theme study tour to explore the power of women in India, the driver of the whole journey are women from the social enterprise Women On Wheels which founded the women drivers' Union, the guide is a girl from the Aahan Tribal Development Foundation which helps girls who escape after being trafficked. Besides, they visited slums under the guidance of the social enterprise Reality Tour to learn about subsidizing slums with part of their profits to reduce the wealth gap. Then, they eat at a local restaurant called SHEROES, which takes in women who were disfigured by sulfuric acid as waiters. This contributes to SDG 5: gender quality, SDG 8: decent work and economic growth, and SDG 10: reduced inequalities.
Gobeyond also cooperated with World Heritage Conservation WHITRAP to launch a research tour on the theme of rural culture. The study group participated in the design to build a village history museum in Cangdong. Through the interview, photographing and recording of residents and culture, the documentary film is finally produced and displayed in the museum, along with celebrating a sustainable rural community and devoting to SDG 11.4: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage (United Nations, n.d.).
Moreover, Gobeyond offers a Beyond box for every traveler, which is closely related to SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. The box contains biodegradable band-aids, eco-friendly bamboo toothbrushes, organic lipsticks, and a series of recycling products.
Gobeyond doesn’t just stop here, its power is unlimited…
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Ruoyun Wang, Co-Founder
Gobeyond is a social enterprise in Shanghai that provides study tour. As well as a B Corps with social problems solving as its teaching content, social innovation as its core value, and experiential learning as its design concept. Gobeyond hopes to inspire the empathy and creativity of participants in the process; their vision is everyone can understand social issues, more people can feel the charm of social innovation on the ground, more and more people call for social friendliness (Gobeyong, 2021a).