SLS-6a4 A fallacy - running out of people to serve

At the beginning, one of the objections to implementing service-learning in PolyU runs like this: “Hong Kong does not have the type of extreme and extensive poverty such as exists elsewhere in the world such as in the inner cities in the USA; hence there is no strong need of service-learning at the large scale contemplated." A highly successful chair professor had voiced exactly this argument in a PolyU management workshop.  The worry is that there is insufficient “demand” for the service that our students are offering.  

Another related concern expressed by even some of our very senior external advisors goes like this: “with so many students at PolyU required to engage in community service, when other universities also get involved in service-learning, we may encounter strong competition in finding enough people to serve.”  The worry here is that there may be too much “supply” of service offered by the students.  Although the basis of the two arguments differ, the concerns are similar - there may be an over supply of service against a limited demand for it.  

Let us take a closer look at where the demand and the supply stand. It is true that Hong Kong is one of the wealthier cities in the world.  In Hong Kong we do not have a lot of people who are starving for lack of food.  Neither do we have a lot of crime-infested slums where people are afraid to intrude.  But we do have 1.4 million persons (out of a population of 7 million) who are under the poverty line.   We do have 1.27 million persons 65 or more years old, many of whom without adequate financial, familial or other necessary support for a life with dignity.    We do have 400,000 persons with a wide range of disabilities (mental, physical, …) according to the Census and Statistics Department survey in 2001.  We do have more than 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers who have nowhere to go.  We do have more than 1,000 registered street sleepers whose numbers are rising.  We do have more than 280,000 who live in subdivided flats or similar undesirable housing.  It is highly unlikely that we will run out of people who needs help any time soon.  And then there is Mainland China to the north with 1.3 billion people with their 10’s of millions of disabled persons, …    

PolyU is sending out 4,000 students each year to service-learning projects, each serving for 40 hours over one year.  It is a very small number when set against the tremendous need. We have been running our program for close to 10 years now.  And several other universities in Hong Kong are also expanding their own SL programs in their own ways.    If a massive expansion of service-learning among universities in Hong Kong really happens, it might conceivably expand the umber of students involved each year by, e.g., 10 times, to a scale of 40,000 students offering 40 hours of service each year. 

At this scale we are no where near exhausting needy communities to serve. It would be welcome by the community, rather than create a damaging competition among the universities. The challenge that we do face is in matching our expertise to the appropriate community,  or developing new skills to serve a need that we feel compelled to serve.  So far, our team and professors teaching SL have often been frustrated, feeling powerless facing such an enormous need that we can never fully satisfy.  After spending 4 years to install solar panels and wiring up 500 houses to provide basic electrical power for a village with a population of approximately 2,000, we realise there are still thousands of villages like this one in just one country of a population of over 10 million.  The fear that we will ever run out of people to serve is truly a fallacy due to our own poor grasp of reality.