May, 2007

From Hong Kong to Manila - Experiential Learning Programme for Youth

Debby Chan Sze-wan

(The author was HKCI's project secretary on civil society education until May 2007.)

In April 2007, the Hong Kong Christian Institute (HKCI) held a programme called World without Bystanders 2007, an experiential learning programme for youth to study the causes of poverty and to reflect on the role of themselves as global citizens. We brought a group of young students to Manila to expose them to poverty there. We chose the Philippines, not only because poverty is very explicit, but also because it is a good environment for students to deconstruct the myths of poverty.

Before going to the Philippines, we asked the students about the causes of poverty in the country. As typical Hong Kong people, they believed that the prominent cause of poverty was a lack of education. However, there are about 140,000 Filipinas working as domestic helpers in Hong Kong, and more than 30 percent graduated from university, and 30 percent finished high school. Although many of them were once nurses, teachers and accountants in the Philippines, they now work in Hong Kong as domestic helpers. It is very sad when even university graduates need to work as domestic helpers. For those who have not had a higher education, their situation is even worse. For many Hong Kong people, including some of the participants of our programme, they have had experiences with domestic helpers in their homes. It is a good starting point for them to explore the life of Filipinos and the causes of poverty if an inadequate education is not the primary reason.

Since there are growing numbers of Filipinos migrating from rural areas to cities and from the Philippines to overseas because of poverty, the focus of our programme was both internal and external migration. The trip's objective was to find the causes of poverty among slum dwellers, peasants and migrant workers.

During the exposure trip to Manila, we visited various non-governmental organisations (NGOs), like the Kapatiran-Kaunlaran Foundation, Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, which work for the urban poor, and the Peasant Movement of the Philippines, which fights for the rights of peasants. As mentioned previously, the approach that we use is experiential learning. When we use this approach, experience is just a process to call forth one's empathy and to raise the interest of students. More importantly, we hope to transform experiences and empathy into reflection, analysis and action.

From Experience to Learning
At the beginning of our trip, we brought the students to slum communities and dumpsites, like Smoky Mountain and Payatas, to observe the daily life and living conditions of the residents-very shocking scenes for the students. Some students said that when they smelled the rubbish far before arriving at Smoky Mountain they could not endure it and struggled whether they should get out of the van or not. When they did step on the ground, they could not find an inch of soil; they just stepped on thick piles of rubbish. In just a few seconds, they witnessed a junk truck unloading rubbish and more than 100 men, women, children and elderly rushing to collect the rubbish as if they were hunting for treasure-experiences I believe they will never forget.

We then interviewed some garbage collectors about their working hours, income, the reason they settled in the dumpsite, etc., learning that people worked 12 hours a day but could only earn 200 pesos (about US$4.30), that they could afford just two meals a day, that the cost of basic services is as high as Hong Kong, that people were once farmers but could not feed themselves, etc. Students then began to trace the causes of people's poverty. Through this process, the students began to think and link experience and learning. Together with the analysis of NGOs, students started to understand how different policies, like privatisation, land reform, urban planning, the failure of democracy and political killings, etc., affect the livelihood of Filipinos.

Transformation of Students
Apart from the scenes of the slum communities, stories of the activists were also very powerful for the students. For example, we visited a peasant leader who fled from his province to Manila. He had been receiving text messages and had been labelled a terrorist by the military. The students could not imagine why people who protest for their basic rights could be harassed and killed. It is a good lesson for students to connect economic rights and political rights. After learning about the political killings in the Philippines, students asked the organisation to give them postcards and posters about the extrajudicial killings to distribute in Hong Kong.

In addition, when we interviewed some peasants during a protest on genetically modified seeds and land reform, we were quite sensitive to differentiate an education activity from a social action, but the students asked to join and wrote a solidarity message for the event. For all of them, it was the first time they had joined a social action. We were glad to see the students transform their empathy to action.

Responsibilities of Global Citizenship
We always stressed during the programme that the suffering of Filipinos is not a means for us to learn; for after understanding their adverse realities, we have a responsibility to do something. It is not just because we want to help them, but rather, as brothers and sisters in the global village, we ought to do something to support them. Therefore, after the exposure trip, students used various means to share their observations, feelings and analysis, such as writing articles and speaking on internet radio and at assemblies in schools and churches, etc.

In Hong Kong, the problem of poverty is also very serious. We also have garbage pickers and people living as squatters in our community. However, most of the people just take it for granted. It is hard to raise the concern of ordinary people to look at the problem and study the structural causes. Therefore, we need to find ways to attract more students to join our programme. It is good to nurture students to be concerned about the lives of people in developing countries-lessons that they can apply to Hong Kong. Through this process, it is hoped that people's lives and the societies in which they live can be transformed.