IARSLCE in Durban

This is the first time this global conference on Service-Learning and Community Engagement is held in the Global South, in its 25 years of existence.  It has usually been held somewhere in the USA, with the overwhelming majority of participants and presentations coming from USA.  This time, many come from Africa.  The content of the presentations and discussions also reflect that, which makes it  very refreshing.  There is also a fairly strong representation from Asia - mainly Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.  Unfortunately, perhaps due to the great distance, cost of travelling, and differences in language, much of Asia is still missing, and few are from South America.  This is one of the greatest challenges of a truly global dialogue.  The world is still very big and travelling is difficult for many. 

I was asked to speak on a panel of past and present members of the board of directors.  On our personal journey, observations and projections for the future.  The five panelists come from Ecuador, Chile, Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA, with two of us having significant experience in Africa.  

I shared my journey from the perspective of an engineer, how engineering and professional expertise potentially and actually making big impacts in service-learning, advocating greater efforts in bringing them more into the community.  Above all, I joined the board to strengthen the Asian community, bring the Asian community more into the global community, and the global community closer to the Asian community.  Hence the effort to initiate and grow the Asia-Pacific Community of Practice, the organisation of the IARSLCE APCoP regional conference last December, and the continued growth of the APCoP.  I was both fortunate, and also confident that I have the full backing from my colleagues in the Service-Learning Office.  In this conference, there are 5 of us from PolyU (it would have been 6), one of the largest delegations. Based on the response from the panel discussions and the interactions throughout the conference, our efforts are much appreciated.

A sense of frustration and almost despondence was also obvious throughout the conference, sometimes even explicitly expressed throughout the discussions - with the power grab and funding squeeze from the American Right.  Many programs have been cut throughout the world.  Sometimes an NGO received a call at 3 o’clock in the morning saying the funding was cut, immediately.  The caller himself also lost his job.  In the USA, complete departments are cut from universities and organisations.  Any proposal with sensitive words and concepts in it, such as equality, inclusiveness, etc., have no hope of approval.  Nobody know how long it will last.  

But there is also hope that together, with passion, creativity, and perseverance, much can be done.  The world is not perfect.  In fact, it is full of suffering, ugliness, bigotry, biases, inequality, hatred, and all manners of evil.  Giving up, or throwing up of our hands is not an option.  Faith, hope and love is the only way to live a meaningful life.  Service-Learning is one important way to live out our faith in our career. And we will persevere.