Some Reflections

Service learning is something new to me. Much more challenging than CIP. For me, the difference lies mainly in the process, much more has to be put––all the curricular and non curricular time spent actually briefing on what it is about, having a CAMP to be properly equipped, before the actual planning of the project. All the mentors and organisation members needing to be involved… it somehow makes me wonder whether the result is worth the effort. For something that requires so much effort as this, the project BETTER be good. If not big-scale, then something long-term that people elsewhere can pick up from where we left off. There, I/we realised that a advantage of SL over CIP––the POTENTIAL to be cumulative.

SL can be very beneficial to us too. Other than teamwork skills that can be built anywhere else, we have the chance to identify and engage a real life problem. The chances of failure. How we plan to minimise chances of failure. How we contact real people. How we deal and persuade these people. More yet to come.

Haha so far all we did was identify and choose the project. Many interesting projects from our brainstorm, and we chose one that most were enthusiastic about. Hopefully that means more engagement from everyone. And I realised that there are many ways to help the community… whether we have the capability to do so is another matter.

Since we have limited capability due to time and funding factors, many experienced people advised us to start small. Something very insightful, though we whined at first that our ideas were thrown one side because of this. Hee.

NACLI helped our project both directly and indirectly. Directly through the meetings. And our insightful mentor. Indirectly through the fun and games.

Joe, from SEC, reminded us/me that “all talk is no use. Action is important. (something like that)” I agree. Though we would definitely benefit from the learning part, we still should not forget that the other half is service to the community.

Yeah that’s all. Everyone keep up the good work and don’t forget: RIDE ON THE MOMENTUM.