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October 2013 - Volume 14, Issue 4
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SHTM Academics Lead the Way with CSR and Service Learning Activities
Supporting sustainable tourism development is one of the SHTM's key priorities. Recently, SHTM academics participated in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and service learning activities in Mongolia and Cambodia with that aim in mind.
The SHTM's Dr Jinsoo Lee and Dr Steve Pan visited Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in mid-July to serve as volunteer lecturers and design a hospitality and tourism management curriculum for Mongolia International University (MIU). A private university founded by a Korean missionary in 2001, MIU is the only tertiary institution in the country with English as the medium of instruction. With tuition fees from 800 students as its only source of income and situated in an area with long
severe winters, the university struggles to attract and retain staff. It has 48 staff members across eight departments, with only one in the Department of Hotel and Restaurant Management.
Dr Lee and Dr Pan boosted that number from 15 to 26 July, delivering daily three-hour lectures on urban tourism. Attracting 31 students from various years who were very eager to learn, the lectures were highly interactive and featured an encouraging level of student participation.
In a similar effort over summer, the SHTM's Mr Raymond Kwong, Mr Martin Bugler and Dr Pearl Lin provided assistance in curriculum design and teaching material editing for the Horizons Vocational Training Institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Established by an Irish Catholic nun to assist victims of human trafficking, the Institute prepares students for better lives with food and beverage job skills.
Also in Cambodia, Dr Alan Wong and Ms Chloe Lau led a group of 50 PolyU students, including two from the SHTM, on a service learning visit from 13 to 21 June. Organised by the Office of Service Learning and Department of Computing, and as part of the "Technology Beyond Borders" course, two teams of students engaged children in the technological opportunities on offer in the twenty-first century.
One team, led by Dr Wong, visited a primary school in the Sen Sok district of Phnom Penh to conduct a computer camp. The students mainly taught their young charges computer literacy. They also set up a mobile computer "Lab in a Suitcase" in a TukTuk, a type of auto-rickshaw common in Cambodia, and trained local volunteers in maintaining the equipment and supporting the children in their learning.
Ms Lau led the other team of students to the Happy Tree Community Development Centre elsewhere in Phnom Penh, where they painted a wall and conducted video interviews and a survey with households in the surrounding slum. The data collected were deemed useful for NGO in identifying the needs of the villagers. The students also set up a server for e-books at the House of Rainbow Bridge Hospice Orphanage, a home for HIV+/AIDS-affected children. While at the orphanage they
taught the children how to use computer applications, such as the Scratch language used for basic animation, how to tell stories using stop-motion animation, and introduced them to basic concepts in robotics and blogging.
The SHTM is proud of all these efforts, and will continue to use its expertise to help those in need towards better futures.
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