Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) envisions a world with zero hunger, where everyone has access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food. In Kuwait, a nation known for its economic prosperity, addressing food security and ensuring access to quality nutrition is a crucial undertaking. The American University of the Middle East (AUM) recognizes the importance of SDG 2 and has taken significant steps to contribute both within its campus and to the wider community.

On Campus

Nutrition Awareness: AUM promotes nutrition awareness among its students and staff, emphasizing the importance of balanced diets and healthy eating habits. Through workshops, seminars, and awareness campaigns, the university educates its community about making informed food choices that contribute to personal health and well-being.

Sustainable Food Practices: AUM implements sustainable food practices on campus, such as reducing food waste and promoting local and seasonal produce. These practices not only minimize the environmental impact of food consumption but also contribute to efficient resource use.

Community Gardens: The university might establish community gardens on its campus, where students and faculty can engage in cultivating their own fresh produce. This not only promotes hands-on learning about agriculture and food production but also fosters a sense of connection to the food they consume.

In the Wider Community

Partnerships with NGOs: AUM collaborates with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that focus on addressing food insecurity. Through partnerships, the university supports initiatives that provide meals and food assistance to vulnerable populations, contributing to immediate hunger relief.

Food Drives and Campaigns: The university organizes food drives and awareness campaigns that involve students, staff, and the community. These efforts gather food donations for those in need and raise awareness about the prevalence of hunger in the broader society.

Research and Advocacy: AUM engages in research that explores the underlying causes of food insecurity in Kuwait and proposes evidence-based solutions. By advocating for policies that enhance food access and distribution, the university plays a role in shaping the national discourse on hunger and nutrition.

Educational Outreach: AUM extends its educational efforts beyond its campus by partnering with schools and community centers. It conducts workshops on nutrition, food preparation, and sustainable agriculture, empowering individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to improve their food security.

In summary, AUM recognizes that addressing SDG 2 requires a holistic approach that combines education, awareness, advocacy, and community engagement. By integrating principles of sustainable food consumption and collaborating with local stakeholders, the university contributes to the collective effort to achieve zero hunger in Kuwait. Through its actions on campus and within the wider community, AUM demonstrates its commitment to making a tangible impact on the lives of those affected by food insecurity.

Campus Food Waste

The American University of the Middle East is committed to reduce food waste and to responsibly manage it on campus by adopting the below sustainable practices:

• Preventing food waste through optimized planning for events’ catering supply that minimizes excess food procurement.

• Encouraging outsourced food service providers and vendors on campus (restaurants and cafes) to adopt sustainable practices to measure and reduce food waste and to adopt environmentally friendly packaging.

• Redistributing surplus food while ensuring safe handling practices.

• Promoting student projects that tackle sustainable food waste management solutions, thus educating the community on the environmental and social impacts of food waste.

• Regularly monitoring and assessing food waste on campus to identify areas for improvement.

Nutrition Awareness

Raising awareness on nutrition through various campaigns and events

For instance, since diet and physical activities are considered important pillars when it comes to diabetes care, AUM collaborates with famous diet centers in Kuwait and offers a dedicated space during the World Diabetes Day. Dietitians from these centers answer students’ questions and offer them advice on how to combat diseases with a healthy diet.

Also, as part of general education requirements, AUM offers the course Essentials of Nutrition covering basic nutrition and its application in meeting nutritional needs of all ages is the primary focus of this course. Chemical and physical composition of foods; their changes during processing, storage, and preparation are among the topics covered. This is in addition to many other courses promoting good health and well-being. Read more.

Offering Healthy and Affordable food on campus

The American University of the Middle East (AUM) offers indoor and outdoor food courts that can accommodate a large number of students and faculty/staff who can enjoy a variety of healthy and affordable food on campus without the need to leave the campus during their studies or working hours. Numerous restaurants and cafes under reputable brands with stringent food safety guidelines and sustainable food practices are available in different areas inside the campus to serve the students and faculty/staff at discounted prices up to 30% which makes the options priced reasonably compared to external market prices.

PICK 

For instance, the restaurant “PICK” is available on campus to provide its healthy food , snacks and meals to the campus community.

PICK serves readymade, freshly prepared “BALANCED” food that’s good for all types of diets. Each item displayed has full nutritional information, this allows any PICK customer to pick whatever he or she needs for any meal throughout the whole day. Read more.

Extract from AUM Mobile App - Restaurants and Cafés on campus

Sustainable Food Practices

Designated representatives from AUM conduct recurrent visits to the restaurants and cafes to ensure everything is at an optimum level of sustainable food practices, cleanliness and hygiene. Below are some examples of these restaurants’ commitment to social responsibility and sustainable food practices:

Fresh Palm Trees Harvesting Season

Fresh palm dates produced by the trees on campus are harvested and distributed to the community during the harvest season, which happens to be at the end of each academic year. Additional evidence.

Being a focal point for sports, exercise, and athletics

Universities Athletic Association of Kuwait

The UAAK was founded by AUM at the start of the 2015 academic year to promote inter-university sports competitions for male and female students. Participating Private Universities Teams compete over the academic year for each sport and for the overall championship of the UAAK, which is determined by the accumulating points of success from each sport.

Sports included in the UAAK are football, basketball, volleyball, futsal, squash, table tennis, and tennis, swimming, and squash. All sports are open to both male and female.

Link to AUM teams competing locally against other universities in the UAAK.

Sports Awards Ceremonies honoring AUM Sports Champion teams

As part of our belief in the importance of athletics to promote a culture of well-being and in its contribution to the learning experience of our students, our sports teams were honored by the AUM Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Fahad Al Othman. Only in 2019, AUM sports teams had around 20 achievements to highlight. In 2023, AUM sports teams had 10 achievements.

Tool at the gym to measure body composition analysis, fitness level, and training progress

In 2022, the Sports Center launched the Body Composition Analysis providing weight, fat percentage, muscle mass, body water, calorie intake, circumference, and more.

Selected award winning student projects on SDG2. Zero Hunger

LaYengat

Third Place in AUM Startup Challenge and among top 10 in Babson Global Challenge: This project focused on food waste management through an application that helps redistributing excess food while giving accessibility to lower income individuals. Team members: Shouq AlSamhan and Sarah AlOmani 

Smart Agriculture Monitoring and Controlling System using Multi-agents model

Led to a published indexed paper: Students introduced a smart irrigation system that monitors and controls the agricultural field wirelessly using Zigbee technologies. It considers various parameters such as temperature, humidity, moisture, gas concentration. This system was implemented and tested on a small farm to keep track of the status of the farm, represent the current behavior of the system and react immediately in case of abnormal reading. Results show that the application of this system improved the quality and increased production on the farm.

Soft Drink Supply Chain Sustainability in Kuwait

1st place winner of IEOM Supply Chain and Logistics Competition at International Conference and competition participation, 13th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) in Manila, Philippines, March 6-9, 2023: The study targeted three soft drink companies in Kuwait, to successfully identify sustainability problems relating to the three pillars of sustainability in the companies’ supply chains. To illustrate the benefit of the sustainability initiatives, a multiple regression model was built by collecting data from the Refinitiv database. The regression results showed that there is a U-shaped relationship between the firm value and environmental sustainability performance.

Research on SDG2. Zero Hunger

Journal articles

Conference proceedings