SLS 7d3 - Lessons from the SL Exchange

The students return from their internships in the USA with a lot of learnings as well as questions.  With reference to social engagement, they have seen a lot of parallels between the issues in Hong Kong and what they observe in the USA.  They carry back a lot of exposure to the organisation, scholarship, practices and skills from their internships at the NGOs, interactions with the professors and students, and the society in general.  Many have applied what they have learned to projects in Hong Kong since their return.  

They also bring back questions.  Many are quite surprised that so much poverty exists in a wealth nation such as the USA.  And they are not sure what the reason is.  They realise that they have only experienced a small slice of the big country, for only a limited period of time. Hence what they have observed may not be representative of the country as a whole.  Yet some of them couldn’t help but wonder whether such a stark contrast of poverty set against so much wealth is because of a lack of will, knowledge, or something else.  Many are questioning: “Surely such a wealthy nation have sufficient resources to pull the poor out of poverty. Why is it not happening?”  Why haven’t they tried?  If they have tried, why couldn’t they succeed?”  Many such issues cannot be resolved quickly.  We feel the program has succeeded if it prompts them to question what they have seen, been told, or assumed before, and to continue to seek answers.  In fact, one can ask the same question of Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Korea, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Germany, … 

At this point it is worth stating the reasons why we send students to wealthy nations such as the USA for service-learning.   Surely it is an established fact that even a wealthy nation such as the USA has its own social issues: communities that suffer from poverty, poor health, lack of education, unemployment, discrimination, …   But serving these underprivileged communities is not the main reason why we send our students there.  First of all, as noted earlier, USA is wealthy enough to take care of the problems themselves.  In fact, they are in a better position than most nations in handling these issues.  Secondly, from our perspective, our students can make a bigger impact serving underprivileged communities in other less wealthy nations.   

We send our students there because (1) it is a puzzle that a wealthy nations such as the USA still has so many serious social issues, understand the cause(s) helps us understand how societies function; (2) what is the nation doing or not doing to tackle these issues, and why; and (3) based on their extensive experience, what works and what does not work.  Hence we are sending our student to the leading universities in civic engagement so that our students can learn from their experience and insight.  Given the limited time that our students can spend over there, we can only make a start in understanding the matter.  But that is a good start.