“Service” in schools is not all it’s cracked up to be

I’ve just returned from a UWCSEA trip to Cambodia, where a group of students and parents were guided by three teachers in visits with three of our Service partners.  These partners are NGOs with which we have long-standing collaborative relationships – Kuma Cambodia, Green Umbrella and Free the Bears.  We saw first-hand what great work these groups are doing with their communities, and what contributions our students have made over the years.  Buildings, paths, gardens, and painting are the obvious signs, but in these matters, relationships are the fundamental bedrock of partnership, and so our grade 4 – 7 students met, played with, laughed with and got to know the the ‘Kuma kids’. Rather undernourished, they look a few years young than they are (but they play football like pros, as our students found out the hard way).  Initially a little awkward on both sides, it did not take long for the human bonds of youth to get beyond differences of colour, socio-economics or even language, and something more profound happened than can easily be captured in language after the event, that I hope and believe will stay with our the children long after the forget the football thrashing. Our parents learnt what service looks like in practice; also that ethical tourism can be of huge benefit to both tourist and local; that the effect on their children was deep; and that there are authentic ways for them to use the paid voluntary leave offered by many companies.   We also squeezed in shopping and eating in NGO establishments, at prices with generous margins that support tailors, jewellers, seamstresses, waiters, cooks, and cleaners from poor and marginalised groups.  We ended up with stomachs full of authentic local food, some splendid souvenirs, having made a contribution to people who are helping themselves. We left feeling we had made a small but meaningful difference, and that we had learnt a great deal.  

So why am I writing about a problem with ‘Service’?

The problem I have is that the word ‘Service’ does not capture what we do these days.   Long gone are the trips where we simply raised funds, visited to present them and then got treated like royalty.   Those well-intentioned trips actually undermined the learning about partnerships that we want for our students, and were hardly conducive to the dignity of our partners.  No; and as I have described these trips have evolved into an experience whereby our students come to learn a systems approach.  That means that we need to learn look at problems from the perspective of the people who own the problems, not from a distance.  Only then can we consider about how we might engage in long-term sustainable work to help the community meet these needs far into the future.   So we intend this Primary/Middle trip to be a basis for these students to continue with these partners in future years, into High School and hopefully beyond (some of our alumni students work in NGOs during Gap years, for example).  In other words, the trip is fundamentally about the learning for our students and  – this is key  – to do this, we need our service partners to bring about this learning just as much as they need us.

A great example here was when we went to see the “Book-book tuk-tuk” – a tiny motorised library that we helped fund several years ago, that visits some of the poorest villages, to read stories and lend a few books. Rather like the UK ice-cream vans, the tuk tuk plays music to announce itself, and the kids come running out to see what’s happening.  An hour of literacy activities then follows.  I asked if weekly visits were really likely to make much of a difference to literacy rates, and was humbled by the explanation about the real goals here.  Because while literacy was the way to get funding, and the long term aim, there were many years of just letting the villagers learn to trust the commitment from the NGO, and for the NGO to get to know the village headman.  Then there was the aim of having the parents, who initially watched from afar, start to edge closer and to take an interest.  Then there was the way that the local staff were able to look closely at the children (and parents) to see signs of sickness, malnutrition or other serious matters.  Then there was the fact that the stories read out were often about things like washing hands, or brushing teeth, which needed re-enforcing for health reasons.  Then there was the aim of generating interest in going to school, in villages where there was no school.  In that one hour, we learnt far more about how to go about meaningful, sustainable change that we were able to teach. Calling this “Service” implies a one-way street where we help others – but in truth our partners are helping us as we educate students about how to make a change.   So who is serving who here?  

If this is not “Service” then what is it? Well, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet so perhaps this is not such a big deal.  It’s really what happens that counts; but perhaps we are more likely to do the right thing when we have a name that reflects the reality (there’s a reason we dislike the terms collateral damage and friendly fire). Furthermorea change might reflect the global move away from a potentially patronising and perhaps somewhat colonial let’s help the poor people type attitude.

So what’s the right name?  A more accurate term might be sustainable development.  When this was first suggested to me I was puzzled, but this trip has made me see the sense of it. These school NGO partnerships (what we currently call our “Service Programme”) are a sustainable way to support development of our students and the NGO communities.    Furthermore the sustainable development title firmly places us among the tens of thousands of organisations and millions of people working to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals to make the world a better place. There are designed to provide focus and inspiration to help end poverty protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all, and are perfectly aligned with our Mission. So this is less a name change, for me, and more a realisation of what we are really all about.