Global Citizen Awards
Adam Soley
Summer 2011: Chicago, IL
Summer 2012: San Diego, CA
Winter 2012: Beijing, China
Throughout my undergraduate studies at
MMU I worked as a football coach in the
USA for two summers, as well as gaining a
place on he ‘Study China programme winter
2012-2013’.
Experiencing new places helps you learn not just
about the new place, people and culture… but
you learn about yourself too.
Study China Winter 2012/13
Studying Chinese Social Development and Public
policy, additional to Mandarin Chinese, I learnt of
the complex political control in the country
including:
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The Hukou registration system, where people in urban
areas adhere to different rules to people of rural areas
and it’s purpose to stop economic collapse.
The one child policy, which is vital to stop over
crowding, pollution or at worst a mass starvation.
The understanding of mental health.
The immigrant working population that travel around
the country for work.
When it’s -18°C and a Chinese immigrant child-worker’s face
lights up on Christmas Eve when I taught them something new, I
realised there’s a language we all have in common no matter
who or where in the world you’re from.
Challenger Sports 2011/2012
It’s not all easy… sometimes I couldn’t be with the people I
loved when they needed me…
Working across the windy Midwest, the dry Mojave Desert and on the
golden West coast of the US I did not expect to learn about our society
here in the UK 6,000 miles away! Living with families and travelling week
by week to teach a new group of children I learnt more about myself and
my own culture:
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Understanding the importance of welfare, even in the richest places on earth
there is poverty.
Health, and the importance that everyone should be entitled to health and
happiness.
Education, the more I learn the less I know, there’s a place in the world for
everyone.
…but when I realised I have family the other side of the world that
care for me… I learnt we’re all just Global Citizens.