Books bound for Bangladesh
There are many different ways that people may choose to give back to their profession.
Mike Barthelmeh retired from Lincoln University in 2018 but he's been giving back by remaining involved in education.
His constant mahi has included working on an accreditation system for programme evaluation in the Asia-Pacific region of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA-APR) and reviewing programmes in Indonesia (twice) and Taiwan. He also has a continuing role with a working group under the IFLA Education and Academic Affairs (EAA) standing committee. This group has developed a globally available system for programme recognition which has been used so far in Chile, Morocco, Kenya and China.
Then one day while looking at the library of books at his home in Ōtautahi Christchurch, another idea for giving back occurred to him: Why not donate the texts I'm not using to an academic library in the Asia-Pacific region?
Mike: "I spoke with Dr Nubras Samayeen, the IFLA liaison person for the Landscape Architecture Without Borders (LAWB) working group, and she suggested that an emerging masters programme in landscape architecture at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in Dhaka would be a suitable and worthy recipient".
Even with a very generous discount for the cause by Brad McFarlane of Pack & Send in Riccarton (pictured above), the cost of freight for cargo weighing 40+ kilograms could have been prohibitive.
However the shortfall was soon made up by donations organised by Mike’s contacts in the landscape architecture world - beginning with Garth Falconer (for Reset), Rebecca Ryder (for Boffa Miskell) and Tony Milne (for RMM Landscape Architects).
Without any further ado, a grateful Mike got busy boxing up books.
At that point he had already heard from BUET's Department of Architecture head S.M. Najmul Imam that receiving Mike's collection of reference texts would "immensely benefit" students, faculty members and academic activities.
Professor Imam added: "Your extraordinary dedication in managing the logistics and ensuring a seamless transfer is deeply appreciated by our entire department".
Since enacting this successful donation Mike has been thinking about whether there might be other people with overstocked bookcases who might be interested in doing something similar.
He told LAA "I'm happy to help co-ordinate donors and financial sponsors if the idea takes hold".
If you, or someone you know, would like to talk to Mike about this idea, the best contact email for him is mikebiflaapr@gmail.com