International Service-Learning Conference in 2019 -Keynote Speech by Dr. Carol Ma

Thank you. Good morning everyone. Thank you Prof. Hibiya, and also Prof. Suzuki, and also Prof. Kano Yamamoto. Thanks for the invitation for me to come here to share with you about my experience in service-learning. So, before I start, I want to ask you, how many of you are doing service-learning in your own institution? Can you raise up your hand? Okay. So, because later on I will talk about some definition of service-learning, I may not go in that, because today my topic is about international service-learning movement and partnership and I will talk more about why we need to have partnership and I am not going to talk about example, but I will give you some ideas what others are doing and then you can go further in their website to understand more about what they are doing. Before I start, I also want to talk about my story with ICU.

 

ICU actually is the service-learning pioneer in Japan, and why I say it’s my story because when I worked at Lingnan University, Lingnan is also a service-learning pioneer in Hong Kong. Other than that, we also have similarity. We both are arts university and we’re also　a member of United Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia. We also have different directors, but in ICU, from the first director of office of service-learning, Prof. Kano Yamamoto, to Prof. Suzuki, and we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 I met all of them. I think I am the only one in Hong Kong who met all the directors of service-learning in ICU, because we have partnership, and today the topic is partnership. We talk about trust, partnership.

 

You look at this slide and some of our participants here, they come from different places. They come from Philippines, China, India, Thailand, Singapore because we have partnership, because we have project working together. So, that’s why, because of this trust, you invite us to be here. So, thank you very much. Other than that, because of Lingnan at that time, when I set up the office of service-learning, we also want to engage more students form different countries to work together. So, we set up the first cross-border service-learning program and ICU students are also part of our program. This picture, I took last year and I am not sure whether Prof. Hibiya and also Suzuki, whether you remember her, Saya. Saya participated in my program in 2008 when we worked together, but we met last year in Singapore. What I want to say is the partnership is beyond just institutional. The partnership actually is our friendship, and the good thing is, two years ago, when I first arrived in Singapore, I also participated in a service-learning program and I went to Malaysia to do a catwalk. What is catwalk? Actually we do education to protect tigers. So, during my trip I met ICU graduate students and so gradually – 15 years ago, and I just messaged her I am now in your school and I am now going to talk about service-learning. We did service-learning together 2 years ago in Malaysia, but I haven’t met her before I joined the Malaysia trip. So, this is how I see partnership.

 

The most important for me, why I am here today is because Prof. Kano Yamamoto. Because in 2008 or 2009 actually I met him when I was a student, when I was a Masters student at Lingnan University, when I studied social policy, and then we went to Chiang Mai to attend an international service-learning partnership and leadership conference and then that was my first time to meet Prof. Kano Yamamoto. So, after that conference he emailed me and said, ‘oh, I am in Hong Kong, do you have time to come for a coffee?’ And then I said, ‘okay, okay.’ Then I went to Chinese University of Hong Kong to meet him and he said, ‘hey, Carol, you have already set up the office of service-learning at Lingnan University, why not you consider to take over the Service-Learning Asia Network?’ Because Service-Learning Asia Network start from ICU and they receive Japanese government funding. So, that’s why I said in 2002 they have already started service-learning, and then I said, ‘okay.’ So, I need – I only a small potato at that time, because we just start the service-learning office. And then I said, ‘Prof. Kano Yamamoto, can you support me? You need to support me then I can hope to revitalize the Service-Learning Asia Network.’ And then he said, ‘No problem, no problem.’ So, for all the years, it’s not because of ICU, I don’t think that we will have this Service-Learning Asia Network. So, what I really want to say, ‘Arigatou gozaimasu.’

 

So, this is my philosophy, because – I hope that you also have this philosophy – After working in the field for more than 18 years, so you know my age now, and so, I believe service-learning is a lifelong learning process. It’s not only because we are in the school then we do service-learning. It’s a lifelong learning, it’s a life skill. So, somehow, you know, my experience – I don’t want to repeat my experience, but I just want to let you know, throughout my service-learning process, I actually went to different places and studied about the service-learning model. And later I will talk about the integrated service-learning model that I think we should also consider to integrate or build in research.

 

So, again, the reason I am here other than Prof. Kano Yamamoto, is because of Lingnan University. And I set up the first office of service-learning at Lingnan University, also set up the first office of service-learning in Hong Kong, and because of this experience, now almost every university in Hong Kong has the office of service-learning or center for experiential learning.

 

After working in Hong Kong for 10 years, and I think that 10 years is already a lot for me at Lingnan University, I didn’t think I will reside Hong Kong. So, I went to SUSS, my two colleagues are here, Wee Heong and also Qi Yu, they are here. And so, if you want to know more about SUSS service-learning model, then you can talk to them. Because I want to take the challenge and go other country to understand more about different cultures, because I believe, different countries, different institutions may have different understanding of service-learning. So, that’s the reason why in my age, and I actually went to Singapore by myself to take this challenge. So, I live alone, new culture, new thing, but I enjoy it, because SUSS treat me very well. So, that’s the reason why I also encourage you to come to our university this June because we are going to organize the regional service-learning conference. From SUSS and also Lingnan, then I go to different places to understand service-learning. So, that’s why I actually have to roam, because I want to see more, it’s not only in Hong Kong, but also other places.

 

So, what we can see now-a-days in the whole world, service-learning actually is emerging. So, if you want to know more about what’s happening in other countries, then you can buy this book, it’s called Higher Education in the World, talking about knowledge, engagement and higher education. I have a chapter inside to talk about service-learning in Asia, and then we also invite different partners in Asia to write about their service-learning experience. So, you see, in Asia, Africa, Central America, Europe, Middle-east, North America, Pacific, and also South America, they also have service-learning or community engagement.

 

So, going institutional engagement, so it’s not only in Asia, but also in the whole world, like Duke University, UNC, Stanford, and then also University of St. Thomas.

 

Not only university, but also non-profit organization like TOUCH Community Service and then also some network, for example, network in Argentina, a lot of university, they do service-learning for an agent. The agent is a non-profit organization. So, you know, in Hong Kong, we start service-learning from institution, but in other countries they also have non-profit organization to drive this service-learning movement.

 

So, we have a lot of books focused on service-learning, but we don’t have a lot of books about service-learning in Asia. We only have one book about service-learning in Asia, yeah. And then the second book about service-learning in China is this one. Again, if you are interested about the service-learning model in China, then you can actually try this book, it’s edited by me, and then other than that what we can do together here because we are here, I also hope that we can take chance to work together, maybe to tell people our story. We also have a lot of articles. We start to have a lot of journal. The reason that I start to understand more about this journal publication thing is because if we need faculty members engage, we also need to consider their promotion and tenure. It’s not only talking about, ‘okay, you do service,’ but they also need to make a living, right? So, they also want to have a promotion. So, I actually have compiled a list of journal that is within the scope and then also the index, citation. So, somehow where faculty members approach us, then I can let them know, ‘you know, you can also publish the articles in this journal.’ In more disciplined journal, they also have articles about service-learning. That’s the trend that we want to make more people understand, even disciplined journal, we can also incorporate service-learning.

 

And thank you for one of the universities in Taiwan, Cheng Kung University, because of the service-learning development, and then Hong Kong, actually Lingnan University, developed common outcome measurements in service-learning. So, we work together with other universities and developed this COM service-learning measurement. And now, UST, University of Science and Technology, and then also Baptist University are using this survey. And then I worked with Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, and then we validate the survey in Chinese. We also published a paper. So, again, what I want to say, this is all partnership. This is all cross-border partnership. So, we have different outcomes, and I am not going to talk about the outcomes of service-learning today, but I just want to let you know, the partnership that you see is not only local, but also across the region and also across the whole world.

 

Of course, in Asia, we see a lot of institutions, that’s also the reason why we have different partners here, because we see each others have different good characteristics, we also have different strengths, and then we work together. So, different universities are here, so we need a network. So, we have Service-Learning Asia Network. So, why we have service-learning in Asia related to the change of the world. First, the digitalization, AI and also BotChain development. So, what we can expect now or predict is about change. Also the globalization, we have to cope with the diversity. We also need to understand more about the intercultural perspective, religious or our cultural thing, and then capitalism. So, somehow we have to think about the ethic, social responsibility, and also our civic roll. So, this actually make us to think about what we need to do. So, because in Asia actually we have a lot of differences, rich and poor, urban and rural, various religious cultures and languages, and various education system and political system leads us to think, if we can work together, how we can work together, and what kind of means that we can work together. Of course, there are lots of means, right? So, that’s why we start up with program, we have talked about the internationalization, and international partnership is one thing. So, a lot of university now they reemphasize the principle of community engagement, service-learning, and also scholarship. So, what we need is partnership. We also need to have change. So, how many of you know Jack Ma? Only one? You know, Jack Ma, Alibaba, of course we all know, right? So, Jack Ma, actually in one of the world economic forum, he mentioned about this. I think this is somehow, as an educator, we have to think about now-a-days what we need to train our young people. Is this the only knowledge? Is it somehow that we need to teach our students soft skills. How they can learn about soft skills. Can they learn it here by one hour’s lecture? Of course not. They need to have experience. So, somehow independent thinking, values, team work, then they can actually learn full service-learning.

 

So, as an institution - I noticed from the participant list, we have a lot of institutions from Japan join the conference - So, as an institution, we want our students to understand the knowledge. But the most important is whether we can teach our students how to apply knowledge and the most important is whether they know how to transfer their knowledge and exchange their knowledge. It’s not only within the school, but with others, because in the long run they need to find a job in the society, right? So, service-learning is one of the means that we can do, but of course, there are lot of other means, but why, why service-learning. So, this is the definition of service-learning and I am not going to go for it, again, because ICU also mention about the definition of service-learning. So, we just go ahead to the next slide.

 

The importance of service-learning. I know that nowadays a lot of people are using different terms, yeah. To me I don’t care, because the most important is whether you are doing good for the society. We are not actually doing service for the sake of doing the service. So, service-learning is a kind of reflection for us to have self-service mindfulness and actions. And then, it can also create positive emotion. And then, when you feel happy, then you continue to do service, but if you don’t feel happy, then you want to go away. So, when you have positive emotions, it will also enhance your positive learning and this lend into your positive learning. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then we talk about this self-actualization. And I saw a lot of service-learning pioneers. I use Prof. Kano Yamamoto as an example. Why he is here today is because he is so supportive of service-learning. And I met other pioneers, and I will tell you the story later on also. The reason why they engage in service-learning is because they believe in it, because they want more people to understand it, they actually not just talk, but they do action. So, service-learning also links into the contextual learning. So, it’s not just ‘go there to serve.’ So, for example, the pictures about the agricultural farming, yeah, students need to learn about the farming situations in Japan. It’s not just go there to do service to farms. It is actually they need to know about the contextual learning, the contextual part, and then it also links into the holistic learning. When university, different universities mention about whole person education, then it’s all about holistic learning.

 

In a lot of universities why nowadays they do service-learning is because it links into the high impact learning. We always talk about impact level, even for publication, right? – Impact factor. So, here, service-learning have a high impact learning. So, you get a chance to go to take a look on this article, mention about how service-learning created leaning for our students. Not only in the generic learning outcome, but also personal and practical. So, that means this can also inspire them to choose their major, like the video in ICU mentioned about that, and also their career.

 

So, here you see – this is actually what I developed when I was at Lingnan, but I have another model after working in SUSS and also working with other institutions in Asia. But you can tell from here, service-learning is in the middle and then relaying into academic study and meaningful community service, and research. So, somehow we have reflections in between. Okay, we send students, ‘okay, you do service,’ and that’s it. We need to actually do reflection with them as an educator. It’s not just let students to go to the community, to do what they want to do. It’s somewhat our responsibility to make our student’s learning being that. And they need to be transformed and it also depends on how we facilitate the whole learning experience. And for the process we help to build knowledge, we help students to apply knowledge and also transfer knowledge. So, again, different terms and definitions. I understand that in Taiwan, because a long time ago, in 2006, I was in Taiwan, invited by ministry of education to talk about service-learning, and at that time, talking about 2006, now it’s 2019, actually at the beginning the customer identified 10 universities and Fu Jen University is one of the universities, Chwo Miao-Ju is actually here, and they actually, you know, was given quite a lot of money, 10 million Taiwanese dollar, to start service-learning. And then throughout the time, now the government talk about design thinking. So, that means the funding model is different. But, again, it’s not about the term, I think it’s about what we want to do, the common good, and also how we engage with different stakeholders. That actually have a lot of faculty members, they also discuss, why some university they use design thinking, why some university emphasize social innovation, how we can actually work together? Are we actually doing the same thing? Are we actually addressing the need of the society? Yes, we are, so why not we just work together, right? And I talked to Brown University, the director of global engagement in Brown University. So, I asked him why you have different centers, you have center for social innovation, you have global engagement, you also have community engagement center. And then he told me, ‘Carol, do you know why? Because we need different funding, so we name after different donor. So, somehow we have different centers or name,’ but we are actually doing similar work.

 

Universities also have different requirement, because we cannot have a standard protocol, what you need to do, what you need to do. We have to respect every university’s characteristic. So, we go back to their vision, yeah, why you need to do it. We go back to their mission and vision, and then – So, different universities have different requirement, course requirement, program requirement, degree requirement, and even credit and non-credit requirement. I am in service-learning field, but my background is also related to aging, gerontology. And I was just appointed as the head of the gerontology program at my university and then I also want my students to serve the community. As the master’s program we actually have a program called internship. But we are going to change it into professional service-learning because our students they serve their community. We also want to echo to the need and also the university’s mission because all our university students, the undergraduate, they require to do service-learning. So, somehow we are thinking about how we can echo the whole university philosophy.

 

So, a lot of school from local to international. So, again, how many of you have international service-learning program here in your school? Okay, so we have 10. For those, if you don’t have, don’t worry, because we have a lot of representatives here from different countries, and then you can actually talk to us. All you can do is to come to our Asia-Pacific Regional Conference, and then to meet partners and then you will expand your international partnership. Okay? So, I will tell you more about this. But I will be reminding you because I really want you to come to our regional conference.

 

So, for this international service-learning, and according to Bob Bringle – Bob Bringle actually wrote a lot of articles and books about international service-learning. So, some of them he called Global Service-learning, some of them he called International Service-learning. So you see ISL actually borrowed the domain of service-learning, study abroad, international education. It’s quite similar with service-learning, but the location is different. It could be within your country or place or your institution, but you invite different institutions to come and work together, or maybe you send your students to other countries, like one semester, one year, one summer study abroad program. Student exchange service-learning program or academic focus or could be non-academic focus. It depends on what kind of service-learning program that your school organize and then could be different format. You know, if you ask me, I really support direct service, because when we do direct service, our students can experience and talk to the service target, but of course, our indirect service we can do advocacy, we also have our students to do community-based research, we also have indirect service. Again, because today I am not going to talk about the details of what types of service-learning, but I just want to let you know, for ISL there are different form. For this coming slide you can actually go to their website to take a look at their global service-learning, because we have a lot of other things to talk, but I want to highlight for SUSS we have global service-learning. So, you see, we actually have different types, YEP, and then we also have reciprocal GSL, that means we have exchange. So, we actually work with Taipei Medical University. We also send students to Lady Doak College, we also send students to Silliman University and then community engagement placement and also service-learning experience. And then Poly U, another university in Hong Kong, and they – I really say that they are very brave because they talked to me in 2010, they want to develop service-learning. In 2012, because of the education we formed in Hong Kong, we convert our education from 3 years to 4 years, within 2 years of preparation and then they make the whole university to make service-learning as a required course. So, why? They have money. So, they have incentive to give to the faculty members and department. So, from local service-learning, they do a lot of global service-learning and now they also have service-learning faculties training. So, if you want to know more, again, you go to their website. Before I left Lingnan and then we jointly applied for grant from the government to do service-learning in teaching and learning, because we want to make sure and also train more faculty members to do service-learning. So, Poly U is the project lead of the project.

 

This is Singapore Poly because I am helping them to do the impact assessment. So, I want to highlight – I was surprised when they invited me to evaluate their program to develop the impact assessment scale. They have projects across different countries. Japan, they also two college participate, but they don’t have a site in Japan. But my colleagues in Singapore Poly told me he is coming to Japan next week to expand the partnership. So, you see they actually have the program. They actually use design thinking and social innovation to help the country, institutions to work together.

 

This community outreach program, we have Petra Christian University here, representative here, the director here of services. So, if you want to join COP, - yeah, I am a promoter – you can actually go to him because a lot of the universities also joined this program. Lingnan sends students and also Fu Jen sends students, and also Chinese universities also send students. ICU also sends students. So, we need partnership. So, this actually is a typical partnership that I see is very important.

 

This is actually the integrated model that I want to share with you, from self to global, because we talk about international partnerships, we need to understand ourselves first. You can’t just go to other country and say, ‘Oh, I want to serve, I want to work with you.’ So, I always say, before we start any global service-learning, we need to talk to ourselves whether we understand our local service-learning. We understand our needs in our local context or not. Because when you understand your need, then you go abroad and then you can compare, and then you can actually have more stimulation. You can learn and then you can also inspire yourself what you can do more. So, here you can see I put self, others, family, school, community, country, and global. It’s a lot of ideas, but I want to tell you some universities emphasize character education. For Taiwan and Singapore we start service-learning, we talk about character education. Character education is very important. The reason that why you are here, you care for your students, you care for your future because you will get old, you want the young people have more responsibility, right? So, somehow self-character education is very important. From self to others, we also have organization focus on youth development. The youth service-learning as a means to focus on youth development. As a university educator, do we care for our young people? Yes. Youth development is somehow that we also care. So, we put here family education – This part, when I was at Lingnan, we actually have a team we discuss. We talk about young people. Can we engage our families, student’s family, to do service together? That would be very amazing. So, in one of the events we actually invite our family members, students’ family members, to come and share with the audience why the parents allow students to do service. Sometimes the parents they don’t support, because they say ‘why don’t you use more time to focus on your academic learning,’ because they see that ‘oh, this is only social service.’ So, we actually need to engage the family and then from school, of course, - from school we actually use it as a pedagogy. How to embed this into your scholarship. And then from community – see as a community development. So, I remember, when I started the conversation with some of the participants in Malaysia, and then they told me when we do service-learning we see as a community development.

 

National Citizenship Education – When I talk to some of the secondary school, JC Junior College in Singapore, they told me service-learning is also one of their means to echo to the national educations. Same in China also.

 

And then global citizenship education – Whether we can actually have them to have a global context and global understanding, and global responsibility. So, this we need to reflection, it’s not just talk. How we can actually have our students to reflect. So, that we need to teach students techniques, how to do reflections. In between, recently I have different category, academic study, curriculum studies, community based service and community-based research. It is because, as I said, we have different cultures, we have different understanding of service-learning, we shouldn’t have our own protocol and then to tell the university what you need to do. So, we let the university or the institution to choose what they need to do. And then in between we still have this knowledge creation process because, you know, as a university, as a member in this society, we all want to create knowledge, that’s the reason why we are here.

 

This is actually what we need to do as an educator, because we are all teachers here, how we can help our students to make connections and transfer learning to and from similar learning context. So, you see here, other learning and learning context. So, you are here today and after you go back and may be tonight you ask yourself what did you learn. And then the video we talk about why and how, yeah. So, what’s next? That’s actually we need to discuss, what’s next. So this experiential learning is not only you participate in it and then you stop, just like you are here and I hope that I can see you in Singapore, because it’s not a stop in here. So, I will see you in Singapore and at the conference you communicate with other people, you actually make your learning more, same from self, local, to international. But in between we need teachers to help students. Can we just rely on students? Yes. Students can also do this role while you actually talk to them, you know, they understand the whole idea of reflection. We train service-learning students as leaders, to lead the reflection also. And I understand that in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, we also try to do that because we cannot rely only on a small number of staff in our center. We need to rely on our students also. That’s the reason why we train the students to become the leaders in the field also. I have students now, they work in other universities as service-learning coordinators. I am so proud of them because they are trained at Lingnan University. So, I also have colleagues, they want to go further, have another career path, they also now work in other NGO and also institutions. I am so proud of them because I see – they see their own development. They can actually use what they’ve learnt and serve other institutions. So, how can we design international service-learning program addressed to the needs of our community and students. So, have you thought about that? Yeah, right? So, I am not going to talk about this because I have a video about fair trade learning.

 

This one is developed by my friends Eric and he is one of the speakers in this regional conference. If you want to know him, come and join us. So, take a look at this.

 

(Video Playing 0:57:00 ~ 1:00:15).

 

So, this organization they actually have a webpage under their Campus Compact in the state. Campus Compact is a network in the state that coordinate all the institutions to do community engagement. So, you can actually type C-A-M-P-U-S and then C-O-M-P-A-C-T. You can find more information from that website, but what we can see why they have this video is because they also see a lot of international service-learning could be harmful. It’s not all good if you don’t really have a well planning. So, when we have more institutions doing service-learning, I actually also have a concern whether we will create service-learning pollution. So, that’s actually we have to remind ourselves, because I know some schools make it as a requirement. When you force students to go do service, it may not be good. But some study mention about, like when they force students, like University of Maryland, they have a study and they actually, in the middle school, they force student to do service-learning, but more students they actually opt for doing service after work because it actually helps them to nurture their social responsibility. But some other university have negative impact. So, somehow they change and take it out, not make it compulsory. This all is related to your university culture. For example, ICU also have a mission to serve God. So, students come in and they know that they actually are willing to serve. Like in Lady Doak, I know students also they are willing to serve, it is because of the vision and mission. Why they are in the university is because they believe in the university education’s mission. So, this service-learning pollution is the reason why I want you to take a look on the second video

 

(Video Playing 1:02:44 ~ 1:05:55).

 

So, there are a group of academics and students that are against international service-learning program. Of course, not all international service-learning programs are bad, but I just want to highlight when we design to organize any international service-learning program, we have to ask ourselves, whether we have any stereotypes and whether we challenge any perceptions or not. Whether we know about their cultures. So, the needs assessment is very important. So, it’s not – okay I see that countries so far where we just go and serve. It’s all about money. Your air tickets – money; accommodation – money; can we use those money to serve our local people? So, we have to ask ourselves. Yes, of course, when you have donation and then you need to think about long term partnership, it’s not only one off. So, this is actually – I wanted to share with you, my colleague, she actually have a trip to go to Laos, and then I ask her, because she is actually in-charge of some of the international service-learning program, and then here are the keys that he mentioned, how we can build strong relationship and partnership with our community and then we need to be humble, we also need to encourage our students to step out of the zone and then deepen the learning for reflection. And the key thing what we need to have is here. Wherever you do, local or international, this our SUSS principle in community engagement. So, five principles talking about paucity, reflection, meaningful service, student voice, and also community voice. So, when we do any international service-learning program, we need to listen to our community. My friend do it and he also identified six standards of practice to guide our decision when we do global service-learning. So, I will send this PowerPoint to you, so you don’t need to write, but somehow you can actually get it for educational purpose also. So, this is developed by him because we met in one of the liberal arts conference and then we discussed and we exchanged and then he also talked about global service-learning.

 

Here are some standards that we have to remind ourselves. Organizational alignment, that means related to the vision and mission of the needs in the organization or community. Sustainable Management and then Responsible Marketing – So, what we can do, what we should avoid, and why these methods. And, again, I am not going to go one by one, but I just want to let you know there are some key points that we need to remember and then also how we can have integrated implementation, protection of people and planet, and also realistic evaluations. Sometimes we do evaluations, but may not be very realistic. From academic point of view we need to collect a lot of data because we want to compile data to write articles, but is this what the community stakeholders want? Do they know how you use the data? So, this one also needs to go for our IRB, Institutional Review Board because it’s all about the ethics that we have to consider. So, for me I have 6C, for you also. This 6C is about communication. This communication is not only with the community partners, but with the students and teachers because we have different expectations when we do service-learning. Students think ‘okay, I will go there and to save the village.’ I have students they actually join international service-learning program and then they want to donate money directly to the villagers, and I have to remind him, ‘No,’ because as an organization we have to do it together. You cannot just give these villagers, but not this other villagers, right? That will create some conflict in the community. So, you have to manage different stakeholders’ expectations. We need to communicate with each other very well. Considerations – focus on others, not always me, me, me. We need to see the needs of others, but not ourselves. So, this is very important too, because some university may just want to ‘okay, I need to do a lot of international program, and then we send students here and there and there, and then we want to pull more.’ But at the same time we have to really ask ourselves whether the community partners they welcome or not. So, you have a choice, you have the right to choose, your partner. Partner also have a right to choose us, but most of the time no one teach our community partners they can say no, and they don’t know how to say no. So, we actually need to teach our partners how to say no. I have a partner from Vietnam, and I am helping them to do a project also, he told me one of the universities, I don’t name the university, the university want to help them to develop water filtering system for riding bicycle. It’s very good, because in Vietnam a lot of the people they ride bicycle, right? So, that’s why they think that when the villagers they ride a bicycle and they can also have a water filtering system, so that’s very good idea. And then they approached my friend’s organization and said that ‘Oh, we want to do it together,’ and then my friend said, ‘Oh, that’s good, this is actually what we need.’ And then my friend called all the village leaders to have a meeting with the teachers and students and they also placed the students in the village for almost a year. They developed a filter system, they developed – actually a bicycle with the water filtering system. After one year, of course, they have to take the bicycle, actually the system back to their country and my friend tried to email them many times, you can imagine how many times that he emailed them, and they never replied, because he wants to know whether he can use the water system, because the village leader thinks that this is very good. They want to actually use that water filtering system and cannot get in touch with the teachers and students. So, my friend is very disappointed. And then he talked to me. And then I said, you need to actually have an agreement with any partners approach you. You can’t just – sometimes institutions, we have our knowledge, we go to the village and think that we can save, yes you can save, but I hope that we can actually share the results, share the happiness with the community partners. I think this is called partnership. Partnership, if we want to build trust partnership, then we need to work together. So, my friend actually fear to work with institutions now, and I told him, don’t think that, because we have a lot of good university and institutions, they are willing to work with you, but what you need to do is to sign an agreement with them. Don’t just always say yes. Make sure that you can also get any results together – you share the results together. So, that’s actually what I also advise, if you work with any institution or community partners, we actually need to share the happiness. When you share the happiness, you can have more partnerships. You can also build more trusted partnerships. Also, collaboration – We need to have collaborative approach to build this relationship. It’s not about one way, it’s what I want only. It’s we both want, so we get together. So, this can also make our partnership have continuity. It’s not only one day, two day, it’s a long term partnership. So, maybe you can start one year first and then you extend it into 3 years, 4 years, and then also compassion. Compassion is not only people, environment, but also events and issues. Also you observe and you work with different people, and then you rebuild compassion together. Connections - Not just start one project, but keep connections and build a long term friendship. And I think that’s what I believe. Service-learning is not only a start. Somehow we can actually work together with other institutions to build a long-term partnership and also friendship.

 

So, when I resigned from Lingnan University and I actually also informed my colleagues and partners in other countries and also in Hong Kong, and let them know that I have already resigned and someone is taking over, I think this trust relationship is very important. So, now, even though I left Lingnan, but I have partners in Hong Kong and in the region. If they change any position they will email me, Whatsapp me, Taiwanese friend they will Line me, and then from Mainland China my friends will WeChat me and then from India, and also Philippines they will Whatsapp me and tell me, ‘oh, Carol, I have a new development, and blah, blah, blah.’ So, we can still work together, it’s not the end, even though we finished a project. So, 6C, this one is add on. When I was at UCLA a long time ago to learn about service-learning, I actually read a book in the UCLA library. I always remember this quote because I believe this quote is very important, because ‘coming together is beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success.’ We need to work together. So, I assume now, today, I will make a lot of new friends, coming together. I hope that we can keep together and then one day we can work together. Believe in this and then we can have success.

 

This coming together thing actually also give me a lot of insights. Last year, 2017, in May, I was very honored to be invited by a group of pioneers in U.S., service-learning pioneers in U.S., to attend a meeting. They called it The Gathering. Why they called it The Gathering, they don’t actually have a conference name, but they just call it The Gathering. They want to gather all the people, all the key people in the States, also in service-learning field, to get together. So, here are the organizing team, a lot of universities like Stanford, they are involved. Cornell, University of Minnesota, and then Campus Compact, I just mentioned about. If you are in service-learning field, I am sure that you know who is Robert Sigmon. Robert Sigmon is here also, because senior citizen, because he has no role in the university, but somehow he still publish book. That’s the reason why I said, service-learning pioneer, when you work with them, when you talk to them, when you meet them, then you understand why they still keep the philosophy of service-learning.

 

So, this book is the first book in the States to talk about service-learning movement of pioneers. Some of them passed away, only this. They are the pioneers in the States to promote service-learning. I salute to them because that was almost two decades, I mean two to three decades. I say I was very honored, because I read this book when I first learned about service-learning. So, if you are new to service-learning, I highly recommend you to buy this book. Of course, some of the philosophy may not be echo to your country philosophy, but somehow we would like you to take a look on the whole history development of service-learning in the States. Nadinne, Tim Stanton and Dwight Giles wrote a book and they used a lot of time to interview the service-learning pioneers and I hope in Asia we can actually have one book also to record our service-learning development in Asia. And because of them, the organizing committee worked together to talk about the future of service-learning.

 

This is actually what they want to do and they actually coordinate different generation of service-learning people and then get together to talk about the development of service-learning. And then they record the history, and then we have the interview, we have focus groups and we exchange ideas. We also talk about why university have different definitions now. They actually talk about design thinking, social innovation, social entrepreneurship, and blah, blah, blah. And then at the end I asked the pioneers, if you have a choice which term will you use and they said they will still use service-learning. Then I asked them why you’d still use service-learning, they actually said that actually if you look at the outcomes of definitions, it’s also for the social good. So, whatever means you want to use, you have to ask yourself why you want to serve the community. What kind of social good that we want to bring to the society. Are we here because we want to build a better society? So, your decision is to think about what you want to do. What I want to tell is in the past they don’t have any platform to store the history of service-learning, and now you can find the archive of service-learning in Stanford library, because the vice president, Thomas, also joined us at Stanford, I mean also is one of the organizing team, and then if you want to know more about service-learning development in the States, then you can actually go to their archive. That’s actually may be – I think you can consider to apply for another grant from Japanese government to develop archive for Service-Learning Asia Network, because ICU start Service-Learning Asia Network, may be also ICU could take the lead to develop similar thing. Because of this coming together – we actually also work together on the project, so we have different project also, working on, to see how we can – and actually make the field, get more people to work together.

 

So, we have different participants, and of course participants from different university, but some of them actually represent different organization also. And when we talk about these ideas of international partnership or movement, it’s not only Asian doing it right now, but some of the international organization work together, but there are so many international organizations. So, we always talk about how we can do, what we can do together. So, what we can do is strengthen our network. All Asian we are here, what we need to do is strengthen our own network in Asia also. So, we have Service-Learning Asia Network. So, if you are not a member of Service-Learning Asia Network, again talk to my colleagues and they will send you the link then you can enroll as a member. So, currently we have around 56 members in this network and so, we will disseminate different service-learning information. This year in June 2019, the role will pass to Silliman University. Silliman University will become the secretariat of Service-Learning Asia Network. I also hope that one year ICU will take over the secretariat again. So, somehow we can actually keep rotating in different universities and different countries.

 

So, here is a brief history of Service-Learning Asia Network. I want to say thank you to Mutsuko. Mutsuko is not here right? Mutsuko actually is from ICU, is the one called all the history of Service-Learning Asia Network and then I have to modify, because afterwards I followed up quite a lot in the region what others are doing. So, starting from 2002 actually, ICU has organized different workshops. So, in 2008, actually ICU also published a book, the book is about different universities in Asia to create research opportunities and program opportunities. So, some of the partners that you see at the conference today were actually they engaged in the earlier network and they are still with us. For example, Silliman University, Assumption University. As I said, the conversation with Kano Yamamoto, at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Lingnan took over the Service-Learning Asia Network, and because of that we continue to work together with other universities and then in 2013, actually our team talked about ‘this is a regional conference, why Lingnan always take the lead to organize the regional conference, why not we talk to our partners and see how many of them interested to take over?’ But, of course, not many. So, I went to talk to Pan, Prof. Pan from Fu-Jen University, from office of service-learning. He was the director of office of service-learning at Fu-Jen University, and asked him whether are you willing to be the host of regional conference, and then we can support you from Lingnan. So, we had a very good partnership, because the partnership is not only about, you know, with Taiwan, but actually we work with other countries also. So, somehow Fu-Jen took over and then after that Petra Christian University took over the regional conference and that’s the reason why this year Singapore University took over the organizer role of the regional conference. So, the function of SLAN here is we create a student exchange network, we organize conference, for example, ICU organized an international conference, so we asked colleagues from SUSS to come, we also have colleagues from different countries to come because we see we are partners. We want to come and support. So, it’s not just talk. Again, we take action. My colleagues really buy tickets, they bought tickets and then they will come. We also publish. So, at the regional conference, to give you an example, we have a journal, Metropolitan University. So, that journal also have indexing. So, I worked with Taylor from Taipei Medical University and also one of my colleagues, actually we were in Japan, so we will co-edit the special issue for the journal of University of Metropolitan. We also do community related research joint program in Asia, just like what I mentioned, the COP, and then also the Silliman program, and in curriculum development. Actually we sit at different university and so we share about our curriculum development, and student exchange network.

 

Last year in – actually now it’s 2019 – 2017 we were at Petra Christian University, and then we actually organized the first presidential meeting. So, we invited president from different university to attend the meeting, to talk about the way forward of service-learning. And you see 2021, the regional conference will be in Silliman University, 2023 will be in Dongseo University in Korea. So, every year we try to arrange a SLAN meeting – Service-Learning Asia Network meeting. So, if you become our member, free of charge, then you can actually also joint the SLAN meeting, So, you can talk to our members to understand more about how to do service-learning, how to work together.

 

So, what I want to say again, is come join us in this regional conference, and you will learn more about our service-learning. Here is the title of our conference, ‘service-learning, a lifelong journey of social responsibility.’ Again, service-learning is not confined to only higher education. We should look beyond, it’s a lifelong approach. So, this is the website. So, I started with a story and I also want to end with a story. This story, I actually started this project with Deloitte in 2008. We have the partners from Deloitte work with me and then we went to China, the rural area of China to do service-learning. So here is some of the background information, they are about a village. But I am not going to talk about the whole project, because this project we bring potable water to the village, we also built dormitory, we also provided education program, but what I want to tell you about the project that we do is about education. We actually established scholarship for 4 kids in the mountain areas. That means from 2008, now 2019, it’s almost 11 years. I still keep in touch with them. We just had a WeChat last week. Because they come from deprived families, so somehow it is very difficult for the families to support them to go to school. So, I have different kids here and they are all very good and they call me ‘sister.’ So, we built very good relationship and when they get married and when they invited me. So, next year I am going to attend a wedding again. So, almost everyone get married. So, I want to say, this girl – they all grew up in the mountain area – this girl is now studying in university, studying for master of public health, her major is nutrition and food. So, I am so proud of her. This boy, as I said they come from mountain area, he graduated from Teachers University and after graduation he chose to go back to his village to serve as a teacher. A lot of people in China, if they finish their teaching qualification, they don’t go back to the village because working in the city has more career prospect, but he told me he wants to go back is because he wants to serve back to the village. His wife is also the teacher in the same school. That’s the reason they met each other. This guy also, he is now working in one of the best secondary school in Yunnan, and his parents are so proud of him.

 

What I want to say again, partnership is not just a moment, partnership is forever, because we need to build our partnership as a friendship. So, at the end what I want to say, because you all are here, like what Aristotle said, ‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.’ So, ask ourselves again why you are here today. And I am sure because you all have heart, you want to serve and also see our young people have a better life.

 

So, last year I got a chance to go to Gobi Desert, I walked for 4 days, 3 nights, and this gave me a lot of reflection about my life because when I walk I had sandstorm and second day I was the last one, and then I got volunteer came to me and asked me, ‘are you okay? If you are not okay we have a medical car you can just jump into the medical car and then you don’t need to walk.’ I said, ‘no, no, no,’ because I also did the fundraising project for the mountain area kids. So, I did the fund raising and helped them to build a library. So, I walked and found it very hard, and I talked to myself, I keep talking to myself, ‘you cannot give up, you cannot give up, because if you give up how can you talk to the donor.’ Yeah, because my friends they all donate money and that’s why I had to tell myself I need to continue to finish it. I also see this kind of experience help me to think more about what I want, but I keep reminding myself, it’s all about lifelong learning. I am here today, I also hope that I can learn more about your story. Let’s do it together. Whatever you are doing, service-learning, design thinking, social innovation, but I am sure you are here because you like to serve the society, and I hope we can join hands and work together to build this success and build a better society, better region, and even better world together. So, just for you to laugh, once you stop learning, then you start dying. So, remember you need to continue to learn. Also, let’s make a difference together, okay? Thank you very much.