Fostering Social Responsibility at the University
Beyond educating young people and promoting the flow of academic and professional knowledge; as a university, we recognize the pivotal role we play in contributing to society. To this end, we take very seriously our obligation to nurture and prepare future leaders to be responsible and able to make sound, ethical decisions which address the many challenges faced by society. Through the provision of Service-Learning, our junction with the University Social Responsibility (USR) Network and beyond, we work to raise awareness of the importance of social responsibility among our students and link up with other universities to catalyze social change for the betterment of the entire community.
Service-Learning at PolyU
In the 2012/13, we introduced “Service-Learning” under the four-year undergraduate curriculum. As the first local university to make this subject credit-bearing and mandatory for all undergraduates, our aim was to enhance our students’ sense of social responsibility through community service engagements while addressing community needs.
In a nutshell, Service-Learning integrates community service with academic study, allowing students to apply the knowledge and skills they have gained in the classroom to address social, environmental, and cultural issues within the community. Service-Learning covers a wide spectrum of projects, ranging from community healthcare, elderly care, social inclusion and culture preservation to manpower training and development, education, and improvement of the living environment. Since the inception of the Service-Learning model, we have been working closely with NGOs and our community partners to further customize our projects so as to better serve the needs of society. During the reporting year, the University partnered with several local non-profit organizations to offer 46 Service-Learning subjects in Hong Kong to over 2,670 students. There were also other offshore projects taking students to the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Rwanda and Vietnam.
In 2017/18, we ran a number of impactful Service-Learning projects which served a broad range of people in Hong Kong, helping to empower the service recipients while also fostering and nurturing talent among our students. Some highlighted projects are shown below.
Vision of Love Mobile Eye Care Project 2018
Focusing on providing community vision care services, our “Vision of Love Mobile Eye Care Project” reaches out to the community to bring vision screening and eye health education to the doorstep of the people who need these services the most. The project also serves as a platform for optometry students to apply their professional knowledge outside the classroom. Aiming to further expand these mobile eye care services to 13 districts in Hong Kong, the Vision of Love project has so far benefited more than 9,000 people in the local community through a mobile optometry unit since its launch in 2017.
In 2017, the project visited 26 schools, elderly homes and welfare organizations and offered vision screening, comprehensive eye examinations, follow-up evaluations, vision training, vision rehabilitation, eye care education and seminars. The project also collected used eyeglasses, with 10,000 pairs of glasses appropriate for recycling collected and, after screening and cleaning, fitted with suitable lenses. These “new” glasses were then dispensed to people in Hong Kong, Chinese Mainland, and Kyrgyzstan.
[Photo]: Community members benefited from vision screening and eye health education
Creativity in fashion provides help to the needy
The Troels H. Povlsen Care Apparel Centre, established under the Institute of Textiles and Clothing (ITC) and the University’s Office of Service-Learning (OSL), collaborated with the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association this year on a project which saw students adopt fashion creativity a way of caring for people in recovery, helping them create and style an outfit. A fashion show called “Laugh and Walk Together for a Better Future”, was staged on campus to showcase the design works.
[Photo]: Laugh and Walk Together for a Better Future, a fashion show staged on campus
In addition to helping these service recipients boost their self-confidence and communication skills, the ITC also organized a flagship fashion design event called “Youreable”, to help the elderly and the disabled unleash their hidden fashion design talents. Some 100 PolyU students assisted the older or disabled designers in fabrics selection, fitting and sewing.
More than 350 entries submitted by over 50 non-government organizations were received in 2018, a record high for the programme. The event saw 20 sets of fashionable outfits shortlisted, including a jacket named “United Hong Kong” (團結香港) that was created by wheelchair-bound designer Ms. Ng Kwei-lin. The jacket was worn by Chief Executive Mrs. Carrie Lam at the Youreable award presentation ceremony. The event was further extended in 2018 to engage secondary and post-secondary students, getting them to create apparel for disabled people which included functional adaptive design elements. Out of around 30 submissions, 10 sets of outfits were shortlisted and produced with the support of PolyU students. Both these projects successfully raised public awareness about the importance of building an inclusive society.
[Photo]: “United Hong Kong”, designed by Ms. Ng Kwei-lin, was worn by Chief Executive Mrs. Carrie Lam at the awards ceremony
“Touching is Touching”
To help give visually impaired children a concrete idea of what their school looks like, PolyU students from the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics applied their knowledge and skills to create a 3D campus model of a school for a community project called “Touching is Touching”. The PolyU students conducted on-site surveys and captured aerial shots of their school campus to collect 3D spatial data, after which they designed and printed a 3D model of the school campus. The project helped empower the visually impaired children to connect with their surroundings and understand more about the world. Above all, the project helped spark their imaginations through the incredible power of touch.
[Photo]: Through touching a 3D model of their campus, visually impaired students were finally able to “see” their school
The University Social Responsibility (USR) Network
To cultivate a sense of social responsibility beyond the University’s student community and address pressing social issues, in 2015 PolyU took the lead to form the USR Network. The aim of the Network is to foster social responsibility-related collaboration and resource-sharing among universities.
As one of the USR Network founders pursuing and spearheading the strategic development of social responsibility in higher education, we organized various activities through the Network to advocate the exchange of ideas and steer discussions on the integration of social responsibility into institutional management, teaching, research, services and other areas. In December 2017, PolyU partnered with Times Higher Education to organize a Social Impact Metrics Workshop which looked into the social impact made by universities in the areas of teaching and learning, research, community, environmental sustainability and responsible processes.
Throughout the year, PolyU continued to offer opportunities whereby outstanding students from the Network’s member institutions could participate in our offshore learning projects, with a view to stimulating their global awareness and promoting social engagement. In 2018, 4 students from the Network’s member institutions participated in offshore learning projects under PolyU’s Global Service-Learning Scheme and conducted a Service-Learning project in Cambodia called “Living Environment for Low Income Communities”.