SLS-7d Lee Hysan Foundation Exchange Program

By 2016, we have developed a number of ways for our students to gain international experience in service-learning.  

1. There are many international service-learning projects through which PolyU students  are immersed in a foreign country for an intensive but relatively short 7-14 days with their service projects.  Most of the time they collaborate with local students and youths.  Such as the youth volunteers from many organisations in Cambodia, students from the University of Rwanda and youths from the villages in Rwanda, youth volunteers from Eco Vietnam in Vietnam, etc. 
2. There are opportunities PolyU students to serve in a foreign country alongside international students from a third country.  Such as the Global Service-Learning Scheme that we offered to students from member universities in the University Social University Network, such as those from Haifa university of Israel, Washington University at St. Louis in USA, etc.  They may serve together in a country like Cambodia. 
3. There are the Global Classrooms through which PolyU and students from a foreign country learn together through classes online. PolyU and University of Maryland students learn the complementary topics service-learning and global leadership together in credit-bearing courses. 
4. There are join university teams, such as PolyU-Maryland in Rwanda, PolyU-U Pennsylvania in Rwanda, PolyU-Maryland in Cambodia, PolyU-U Pennsylvania in Mainland China, PolyU-Duta Wacana in Indonesia, PolyU-Dagon university in Myanmar, etc.  These are joint projects where the teachers from the partner universities work together to design the projects for both sets of students.  

Beyond these programs, we want to give our best students the opportunity to be immersed in a strong foreign program in service-learning for a longer period of time, say one to three months.  This is to give them sufficient opportunities to immerse themselves in social engagement in a foreign culture with sufficient time to reflect deeply, experiment, and internalise that learning.  Some prestigious universities in the world have been running very strong academic service-learning programs for many years, with their specific philosophy, context and culture.  The largest number of them are in the USA.  We wish to provide our students with a more immersive way to learn about service-learning from these programs - as exchange students or internships.  

We broached this idea with the Lee Hysan Foundation of Hong Kong and received a favourable reply. The Lee Hysan Foundation is a local private family foundation established since 1973 which supports impactful charity initiatives in Hong Kong.  They are keen to provide the best and most motivated students to learn the best practices overseas and being that experience back to Hong Kong.  In 2015, they accepted our proposal and agreed to fund the necessary expenses for the duration of the stay of a number of students at the foreign university and the project that they carry out upon returning to Hong Kong.