Start Date
6-6-2013 3:10 PM
End Date
6-6-2013 4:40 PM
Description
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to nurturing students to become responsible global citizens with a strong sense of social responsibility and a good global outlook. Students from PolyU participated in an International Service Learning Programme- Yogyakarta Kampung Field School (YKFS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the summer of 2012. The programme was jointly organized by Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) in Indonesia, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and PolyU. This overseas service learning programme was a new programme for PolyU students and staff that reaching the southern hemisphere and also a new attempt that collaborating with two other universities in service learning project. The theme of the Programme was ‘Improving the Living Quality of the Rural Settlements as a Basic of Developing Tourism village in Banjaroya’. Students were required to live in villages in Indonesia where they learned about the diversity of culture and made friends with other students by serving the rural community. Students coming from three universities mixed together and grouped themselves into teams, and stayed at the homes of the local villagers for nearly one month. While adapting to a very different lifestyle, they learned about the local culture and wisdom, and served the local community with their professional knowledge. As students were coming from different academic disciplines, they formed good teams which members were with different abilities and they were also able to carry out a variety of service projects after surveying on the needs of the local communities. During the programme, students studied different aspects of the rural villages and contributed rich ideas on improving the living quality of the local people. The programme has provided a good opportunity for students to learn how to be global citizens and to enhance their generic competences. It also served as a pilot service learning programme for the planning of a credit-bearing service learning subject. Meanwhile, this programme delivered challenges to students in the aspects of culture shock, unfamiliar serving community, language barrier…etc. It also appeared as a great challenge to the programme staff in the areas of risk and uncertainty management, which required the orientation, adjustment and balancing of different supervision dimensions -teaching, guidance, monitoring and consultant dimensions. This paper will discuss the characteristics of this programme and evaluate the project achievements and the new attempts of teaching that contributing for project outcomes.
Recommended Citation
Lam, J., Lee, W. Y. W., Leung, R., & Rawole, P. (2013, June). Opportunities & challenges of international service project. Paper presented at the 4th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning: Service-Learning as a Bridge from Local to Global: Connected world, Connected future, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.
Included in
Opportunities & challenges of international service project
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to nurturing students to become responsible global citizens with a strong sense of social responsibility and a good global outlook. Students from PolyU participated in an International Service Learning Programme- Yogyakarta Kampung Field School (YKFS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the summer of 2012. The programme was jointly organized by Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) in Indonesia, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and PolyU. This overseas service learning programme was a new programme for PolyU students and staff that reaching the southern hemisphere and also a new attempt that collaborating with two other universities in service learning project. The theme of the Programme was ‘Improving the Living Quality of the Rural Settlements as a Basic of Developing Tourism village in Banjaroya’. Students were required to live in villages in Indonesia where they learned about the diversity of culture and made friends with other students by serving the rural community. Students coming from three universities mixed together and grouped themselves into teams, and stayed at the homes of the local villagers for nearly one month. While adapting to a very different lifestyle, they learned about the local culture and wisdom, and served the local community with their professional knowledge. As students were coming from different academic disciplines, they formed good teams which members were with different abilities and they were also able to carry out a variety of service projects after surveying on the needs of the local communities. During the programme, students studied different aspects of the rural villages and contributed rich ideas on improving the living quality of the local people. The programme has provided a good opportunity for students to learn how to be global citizens and to enhance their generic competences. It also served as a pilot service learning programme for the planning of a credit-bearing service learning subject. Meanwhile, this programme delivered challenges to students in the aspects of culture shock, unfamiliar serving community, language barrier…etc. It also appeared as a great challenge to the programme staff in the areas of risk and uncertainty management, which required the orientation, adjustment and balancing of different supervision dimensions -teaching, guidance, monitoring and consultant dimensions. This paper will discuss the characteristics of this programme and evaluate the project achievements and the new attempts of teaching that contributing for project outcomes.