Lessons from Childhood

Lessons from Childhood 

Image from: http://www.relevantchildrensministry.com

            As children, we dream about being the president, living in the white house, flying around the country in the Air Force One. We all have this dream of being the top guy in the one of the world great dream however, this presidential dream caught up with reality relatively quick. Similarly, I fall into a similar imaginary parallel as I was first expose to global issues. At around the age of 14, I was exposed to globalization and world outside of my own bubble. Upon hearing stories from missionaries at church, I dream of feeding the hungry, building schools and shelters. Little did I know back then, my dream of tackling so many global issues that are way beyond my powerless self.  The ideology of “solving” global issues is long gone .However I do believed that there are many lessons to be learn from the naive childhood dreams.

            Before diving into the lessons we can learn from our childhood, I would like to begin with a little introduction of myself. I am Royce Kok, a verdant freshman at Lehigh University. I think I am majoring in Industrial Engineering however, that may change. (Yeah, great, now we have a college freshman who does not even know what she wants to do with her own life yet and she wants to go abroad to help other!) Yep, that's me!

Side track: This is a picture of my beautiful GC cohort nine.

            Well, originally I signed up for this class because I want to be involved in the Caring for Cambodia(CFC) project. I learned about Caring for Cambodia through Global Citizenship (GC) retreat and I become very interested in it. However, as plans usually deviates, CFC needs computer engineer at this developmental stage and I am not one. 

           Now, I am a proud member of the Haiti- Lakes project. Haiti goes through period of drought and period of rain. There are now artificial lakes in Haiti that acts as reservoir for water. With this new addition, there are endless possibilities. These new possibility includes (but not limited to) year-round agriculture business, sanitary water supply, and fishing.  

I embrace change, so I am completely fine with the switch from Cambodia to Haiti. The motif of this class is to assist these organizations and provide them with the expertise we have as college students. 
*Mini lesson: In philanthropic effort, the willingness to embrace change is very important. Our overarching goal is to help others so the interest of the NGO, host country and community should be placed before our interest. In addition, in participating in field work and collaborating with the communities, flexibility is crutial. For example, the host country might not have the same electrical supply as we do here in the United States. We have to alter the project.  (Sometimes slightly but it could be starting from the scratch).

After an introduction about myself, my role and project in this class. Let's get back to childhood business. Sustainable Development Solutions (ES297) is a pilot program at Lehigh University. Our class is then categorized into project groups. This projects is to work with the local community and NGO to find out in what way we could help them. In addition, we will have a chance to visit the host country. Most of the projects are like infants, some are farther ahead but all in developmental stage. However, for Haiti, we are infants so we should learn like the way they learn. 

Lesson 1: Children learn by imitation.

Actions such as talking and walking are learning through imitation. Students of sustainable development that wants to help the community needs to “mimicking the way of live” of the community. This way, student will learn to put themselves in the position of the communities.  

Lesson 2: Children are creative.

This is a picture of me learning how to walk.

Children think creatively, they solve problem unconventionally. Although we might not always want to be too unconventional in implementing or while working on the project, many brilliant ideas are grounded upon unconventional ideas.  

Lesson 3: Children are not afraid of failure

Children are not afraid to fail. While they are learning how to walk, they fall multiple times a day. They somehow manage to stand back up. We need to learn the persistence of children.

Lesson 4: Children learn through trial and error

While children putt puzzles together, they will try to put the puzzle pieces in one spot. However, through measurements, they quickly learn that this piece do not fit here. As for us, there is not a lot of room to condone error in the actual work site or host country. However, at Lehigh, while we are doing project stimulation, it is laudable to come up with a prototype for testing purposes and to learn through error.

Lesson 5: Children play fair.

Image from: https://www.iru.org

Children share when they play. In terms of sustainable development, student need to properly develop their project in a way that is “fair” to the three aspect of sustainable development, which is the social well being  social inclusion, and environmental protection.

Another central phrase around this class that we will use like a child would be “I don’t know.” Please do not be offended by that, we are merely being honest. The class and the groups will works hard to find the “solution”. However, there will be times where we will not know what we are doing, we will try really hard to understand the product from their cultural perspective and we will try really hard to DO NO HARM. Please do not be discouraged by the project we are starting, I invite you dive in to be part of our journey as we become the pioneers to many who comes after us.