Global Service Learning Comes to Huangbaiyu | August 2006
In July a highly motivated group of twelve high school students and three adult leaders were welcomed by the villagers of Huangbaiyu and spent a week engaged in service learning and making new friends in the village and the surrounding area.
Global Service Learning is an innovative program of the Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington. The program enables Lakeside students to live and work with others to improve lives, foster an understanding between cultures, and nurture an appreciation of the strengths, challenges and complexities of those cultures.
In March of 2006, a conversation began between the Lakeside School and the China US Center regarding potential service opportunities in China. It was agreed the village of Huangbaiyu in Benxi Municipality, Liaoning Province could be an excellent possibility. Based on a very positive response from Benxi Municipality and the local Nanfen District government and the high interest expressed by villagers in an oral survey, planning began. The mutually agreed upon goals were to develop a program that was of mutual benefit to both the local villagers and schoolchildren, and Lakeside students:
• Promote a mutual understanding of both cultures.
• Build cross-cultural language capacity through experiential learning.
• Jointly identify and conduct service learning projects.
• Organize a meaningful environmental education event.
The students and adult leaders lived in traditional village housing with home stay families and enjoyed the local Manchu cuisine. During the course of the week, the Lakeside students tutored students at both the Huangbaiyu Primary School and the Sishanling Middle School. The local students tutored the Lakeside students and shared the village culture in what all agreed was an exciting and unique experience.
The Lakeside students spent many hours in community service during the week. Under the guidance of local farmers growing sweet sorghum in test plots for potential use in biofuels, the students cultivated weeds, removed tillers, and applied nutrients in the sweet sorghum fields.
With local water quality professionals, Lakeside students collected water samples from diverse locations in the village to provide a representative sample of source points in the village. The students then accompanied water quality professionals to the Benxi Environmental Monitoring Station to analyze the samples.
A local baker just starting up his business in Huangbaiyu recruited the Lakeside students to spend a long morning helping sell his goods at the district market. Whether it was the quality of the baked goods or the one of a kind sales force, the end result was a very successful day at the market for the baker and a good start to his new business!
In follow up surveys, it is clear that the Global Service Leaning Program was a hit for everyone who participated. For the villagers and students in Huangbaiyu, this was a unique opportunity to learn and share with students from the US. For the Lakeside students, it is clear that the week in Huangbaiyu was a very positive experience. As perhaps expected, the technical goals for the program may have all been reached but the most heartfelt comments were directed at the personal friendships established over the week.
For more information, please contact us at info@chinauscenter.org.