Overseas trips a form of inspiration

SOME people believe that overseas community projects are either a form of self-gratification or an absolute waste of money.

I disagree. I believe they serve to widen the horizons of participants, inspiring them to take further action for the betterment of society - something unachievable merely by donating cold-hard cash.

My first trip to a remote Nepali village to build a library with 23 schoolmates in December 2006 gave me a first-hand perspective on the disparities of life.

The camaraderie gained over three weeks between the villagers and us inspired two buddies and me to take up leadership roles and lead a fresh team the next year.

From that trip, three other leaders emerged to lead a third project this year.

If we can inspire just three persons out of an expedition to continue the good work started by any project, then we have a self-sustaining model for the betterment of society.

Jason Zhou, 23, is a third-year economics undergraduate at Singapore Management University.

An unbridgeable gulf

I PERFORMED overseas community service in 2004 at two homes for the aged and disabled during a week-long school-organised tour of Sarawak.

We played games with the occupants and chatted with them. After two hours, we made donations and bought some of their handmade handicrafts before bidding them goodbye.

I realised then that we would never see them again - I doubt we made a lasting impact.

I wondered: Were we exploiting the occupants for our self-gratification?

We had exchanged our money and time for a sense of having done some good - with a hand- made souvenir to seal the deal.

Since then, I have shunned overseas community service.

I believe charity is best served at home, for the sake of continuity and rootedness. Too little of it would create only a chasm between giver and recipient.

Eef Gerard Van Emmerik, 20, has a place to read law at SMU.

Cultural exchange priceless

IT IS simplistic to see overseas community service trips as just charity. It is also a mutual cultural exchange.

I jetted to rural Borneo a few years ago with 20 fellow Singaporeans to build a kindergarten.

There, we were astounded at how children half our age could carry three wooden planks, while two of us could manage only one.

In turn, the villagers took keen interest in our country and language.

The kindergarten soon faded into the background as we taught the children nursery rhymes, while they introduced their traditional games to us.

The villagers showered us with gifts and gave up their beds for us when we stayed in their homes - a graciousness and trust I would never experience back home.

I would always remember the trip more for the cultural insights we gained from each other.

Lee Khai Yan, 22, is a fourth-year student at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University.

It begins at home

MUST we go to great lengths to help the needy overseas, when we have a good number of them right at our doorstep?

Look a little closer to home.

I've spotted beggars at Arab Street, Geylang Serai and in between bus exchanges and MRT stations. There are also disabled and elderly folk selling packets of tissue.

Aren't they needy too? Shouldn't they be our priority first?

There is still so much to be done here.

That is why I would rather spend my weekends selling flags for the National Kidney Foundation than building toilets or sinking wells overseas.

As the saying goes: 'Charity begins at home.'

Nurjuliana Kamis, 17, is a Pre-University One student in business from Millennia Institute.

No discrimination, please

IT IS unfair to single out a particular reason as to why youths volunteer abroad in less fortunate countries.

Different people volunteer for different reasons.

For some, it may be out of a gracious heart. For others, it may be for that 'feel good' factor which comes from doing charity work.

But the motives do not matter so long as the help rendered is wholesome and beneficial.

It is also wrong to assume that one is obligated to help the needy at home first before venturing abroad. As long as there are people out there who need our help, we should help, regardless of which country they live in.

A sincere heart does not discriminate. As long as there are people in this world who need aid, reaching out to them is fundamentally good.

Bryan Toh, 16, is a first-year mass communications student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Nov 17, 2008.