Which Friends to Keep

At Lunar New Year, let me suggest an exercise.  Scour your friends’ social media postings and messages.  What are they posting about? 

Showing off expensive watches, jewellery, and other luxuries?  Posing at “7-star” hotels, private clubs, monster yachts, posh cars?  Eating expensive meals, wearing exorbitant fashion, occupying the highest price seats in most sort-after concerts? In the company of celebrities?  And when they are with “friends”, they are always in the middle in the front, the centre of attention?  

Or having meals with family and friends?  In the company of elderly relatives and neighbours?  Showing off their decades-long old friends?  Hiking with their buddies?    Tasting or making traditional treats that are full of memory but not necessarily expensive?  And when they show off their group photos, they may be in the back, or the periphery? 

Which type of friends would you rather keep?

Rwanda training

The Spring term has just started.  And the team that will travel to Rwanda in July has already started their classes.  Through out Spring, they will learn the basic concepts of service-learning, the importance of (lack of) energy, green energy in particular, the technology behind solar panels and installation of a simple electrical power system with LED lights and phone charger, the cultural and economic situation in Rwanda, …  And then the team will travel to Rwanda in July, to spend 2 weeks there, installing solar panels. 

From 2021 to 2024, our teams had been installing solar panels around Rwamagana, in the east of Rwanda, towards the direction of Tanzania.  This year, we are moving to Huye, in the south of Rwanda, near the border with Burundi.  In November, I went there with a small advance team to check out the potential sites, meet with our local partner, government officials, checkout the routes and distances, potential accommodation, eateries, hospitals, purchase of supplies, etc.  

Huye is more hilly than Rwamagana, a bit like Gikomero in the north of Gazabo, where we worked before moving to Rwamagana.  Some of the houses have tin roofs like those common in Gikomero and Rwamagana.  There are also some with more traditional tiled roofs. These require a different method of installation of the solar panels on the roof.  These are some of the adjustments that we have to make, whenever we move to a new site.  Hence the importance of advance site visits and planning.   

We use a game to help our students learn about the countryside in Rwanda.  It is a kind of board game where students have to match a number of residents to where they live on the map.  All the information involved in the game: the people, the layout, the roads, the terrain, the type of houses, vegetation, animals, occupation, level of poverty, etc., are all based on our own experiences and made to be as realistic as possible.  Physically we cannot travel to Rwanda until July.  But we want to get the students as familiar with the situation over there as possible.  

Closer to the project dates, a mapping team will have to go to Rwanda to find all the 400 houses, with help from the local villagers and government officials, geo-locate them on a digital map  This digital map of the village will be very important for planning, job assignment and other purposes.  This will also be the first ever accurate digital map of the village, ever.  

SL@PolyU in Philippines

On Saturday, January 4, the University of Philippines Team welcomed the PolyU Service-Learning Team to their Diliman campus, kicking off our first large scale  Joint Winter Service-Learning Project.  The PolyU Team consists of 200+ students and their teachers.  Together, the Joint Team has 300+ members, including the UP President.  In the following week, three major projects were carried out. 

The largest project is itself split into three smaller teams, each with 40 PolyU students, plus their UP collaborators.  They do eye inspections for hundreds of children, for common problems such as short-sightedness, colour blindness, etc.  This is a much needed service in many developing countries, in which millions and millions of children who have never had their eyes inspected.  Many do need eye glasses to help them see properly, without realising it.  By the time they realise it, the situation has gotten so bad that not much can be done to alleviate the problem.  In fact, many adults have the same 

Another team will run workshops to train primary school children to develop AI  (Artificial Intelligence) applications for the visually impaired.  This project achieves multiple purposes.  The obvious is that these primary children learn about some hot, advanced technology - artificial intelligence.  At the same time, they also learn about the needs of a disadvantaged group - the visually impaired.  PolyU students had to the learn the AI first, in order to teach the primary school children.  They also learn about these primary school children, and how to be a teacher themselves.  In the process, all learn the power of AI, and the seriousness of being left behind. 

The smallest team go to a special school to try to teach special needs children: physically handicapped, autistic, etc., basic motor skills.  Such as colouring, and even as basic as paying attention, and following instructions.  What they try to do is very emotionally intense and draining.  Yet also satisfying.  The special school is well organised and staffed with professionals.  Yet like many of its kind, there is always a shortage of funds, space, manpower, and new ideas. Our Joint Team provide some much appreciated new initiatives.  Including an attractive LEGO wall.  

While our students serve the community, we are also running a Teacher Training Course, for 20 university teachers coming from Philippines, Hong Kong and Cambodia.  They learn the core concepts, numerous case studies, and get to observe the three real life projects in action.  They get to speak with the students, teachers, the clients, the parents, the NGO/school staff, …  How did three very diverse projects happen to take place nearby while the teachers take the Teacher Development Course?  Or does it actually happen the other way around?  Or perhaps everything was planned as one giant event?  However it is happening, it takes a lot of effort, and a lot of collaboration.  Pervading everything is the spirit of Service-Learning.  

The teachers actually have to propose their own Service-Learning subject, and associated project.  We, their teachers, provide them with feedback, and let them revise their proposals.  At the end, we are hoping some good new SL teachers and subjects will be born. 

All of these will not have happened without the great work from University of Philippines if not for the effort of our great friends Dennis, Therese, and ...   We are hoping this is just the begining of a great friendship between us. 

New Year Wishes

When 2025 dawned, we all sent each other messages such as “Happy New Year”, “Peace”, “Blessings”, “Prosperity”, “Wealth”, “Health”, …, or something of the sort, something good.  Seeing what is happening in the world, no wonder we wish the world is better.  

In Gaza, it is still occupied by the Israeli army, people continue to die and suffer, with no end in sight. 

In Ukraine, the Russian army continues to occupy a large part of the east, and in fact, is threatening to escalate the war. 

In Syria, one dictator is deposed; much uncertainty remains, at least the people seem to be happier than before. 

In Sudan, the civil war continues, with a large number of people facing the threat of famine. 

In Myanmar, civil war continues. In the mid-2010s, the country was opening up and prospects were promising.  Not anymore.  We took students there for service-learning projects several times in the 2010s; not anymore. 

In Iran, women in particular, are still facing an oppressive environment. My wife and I enjoyed visiting Iran years ago. We are not sure about going there now.  

In Afghanistan, a repressive environment continues, with women suffering the most, apparently. 

In Somalia, armed conflicts continue.  

Dictators and would-be dictators rule so many countries. 

Poverty, discrimination, injustice, oppression, hatred abound in so many places.  

…

 

But do we really believe that the world will get better? If wishes do come true, why do we have to make the same wishes every year?  

Looking at it from another angle, do we actually make serious efforts to make our wishes a reality?  For those of us who wish for “world peace”, do we make any serious efforts to bring peace any closer?  If we don’t, do we have the rights to wish that it will happen?  If we don’t, aren’t we not saying, in effect: “You people should go and make peace, I will just watch and hope to enjoy the fruits of your labour.”?

Some Christians may say that we cannot do anything, but God can.  So all we can and should do is to pray.  However, consider this: Doesn’t Jesus teach us to love our neighbours, to feed the poor, to visit those in prison, to love justice, to be agents of peace? 

Some Christians seem to believe that the world is un-savage-able.  That the world is destined to get worse, no matter what we do. So it is futile to try to improve the world, as it is.  In fact, the worse the world gets, the better - because the faster will Jesus Christ return.  That is a very cynical world view.  That also goes against all we understand of justice and love.  

Assuming that we do mean what we say when we wish for world peace, what are we going to do about it?  If we don’t plan to do anything, what right do we have to wish for it?  

In the end, what do we do?  Stop making wishes that we do not intend to help to make happen?  Or to actually try to make these lofty wishes come true?