REFLECTION OF CROSS CULTURAL EXCHANGE--- PHILIPPINE
Lam Hiu Lai, Gigi BSW Year 1
In this summer, my schoolmates and I had visited Philippine for 21 days. In these
days, I got much experience and learned a lot. For me, all these experience and
knowledge cannot be learned from school.
This was my first time that I went to the other country to have the cross cultural
exchange. What had I learned in this programme? For me, I can experience the
differences between Hong Kong and the Philippines. Many people may have the
impression that Philippine is a poor country and many critical issues happen there.
However, after we had the trip in Philippine, we can understand more the situation of
Philippines.
In our trip, the host organization that accompanies with us is KAMPI, which is
an organization that helps people with disability. KAMPI has a project that helps the
disabled children, called Breaking Barriers-Philippines. We mainly visited the centers
of this project in this trip. In Hong Kong, the non-government organization (NGO)
can get funding and resources from the government (GO). The role of government is
important. However, in the Philippines, the government rarely gives financial support
to the needy one. Government may only provide services for people. However, NGO
provide more services and support but they can only get funding and resources from
donators. This helps me to know more about GO and NGO relationship.
In addition, the development of service of disability in there is very different
from Hong Kong. They encourage the disabled person to integrate into the society. In
the Philippines, the accessibility law is enacted and the inclusive education is applied.
We went to a public elementary school that a deaf girl is studying there. In that visit,
we can know how a disabled child integrates in normal school. For me, I learn a lot
about the service of disability in the Philippines.
Besides, we had the community visit that went to a poor fish village. We can see
that the residents are very poor. It is hard for them to sustain their livelihood. On the
other hand, many rich Filipino Chinese are living in the Philippines. They gather to
have meeting and organize activities. It is true that the gap between rich and poor is
quite wide in the Philippines. Moreover, I can understand more about the structure of
government. For example, Philippine is divided into different region, city, town and
banaguy.
In these 21 days, we not only visited the centers and organizations, but we also
went to the rice terrace to have about 6 hours hiking. Although hiking is a difficult
task, it is a rare and unforgettable experience. In addition, we went to a beautiful
beach and ride horses.
And also, we understand more about the habit of Filipino. We all think that
Filipino is very nice, helpful and polite. They often use their leisure time to
accompany with us, teach us sign language and answer our questions. We learn a lot
from them and our friendship is developed.
This trip let me learn a lot, not only academic learning, but we also learn how to
help each other and how to make decisions, and also our team building is really
developed. I think this type of cross-cultural learning is important for students
because this can enhance our knowledge and let us learn things that cannot learn from
school.