Youth Ambassador Program for Minorities - 2010

Program report

There were 107 university students from Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and the US, and 286 students from minority group participated in the program. The program was successfully launched in seven sites.

In general, the program could be divided into two parts. The first part is conducting research on the minority culture. Volunteers will cooperate with minority students to visit their families and local artists who are very familiar with the local culture. Through this process volunteers could understand more about the minority culture and could compare the difference with the one that they are used to in their home cities. At the same time, minority students could realize the uniqueness of their traditional culture.

The second part of the program aims at utilizing what minority students and volunteers learnt from the first part of the program. Minority students would be separated into small groups and would be led by volunteers to organize activities and share the minority culture in different aspects with each other. Activities include PowerPoint presentation, drama, debate, drawing, cooking traditional food, etc. Through the participation in diversified activities, minority students could have good opportunity to review and rethink the local tradition and culture that had been overlooked for decades.

During 27th August to 29th August we have organized an annual summit in Hong Kong. Representative of committee members from each chapter of TECC attended the summit to evaluate the program and plan for the direction of program in the coming years. We have also invited a professor from the University of Science and Technology to give valuable comments on the program.

Participants were required to hand in a detailed report after they have come back from the program and did an evaluation on 18th September, 2010. All of the volunteers returned from the program reported to have a fruitful experience and were deeply touched by the local people and cultures in their sites. They learnt a lot about the local minority cultures and realized the importance of cultural preservation.

Their evaluation reports would be uploaded to TECC website so that more people can get to know more about the minority as well as the challenges facing cultural preservation in the corresponding sites. According to their evaluation, we believed that YAPM 2010 is getting closer towards the goal and we are looking forward to YAPM 2011 and a wider spread minority sites in the near future.

Having the experiences from the past four years, the implementation of this project has become more standardized and well organized. We could reference to the successful experiences in the past and we are capable to carry it to more areas to achieve our mission. This year, we have further extended our program from four sites last year to seven sites this year. We are delighted that we can now extend our help to the minority in the rural parts of China, narrowing the technological gap between them and the developed regions, and raise the awareness of the educated on the social problems of their motherland.

This year’s YAPM has been a success, largely due to the seamless cooperation and mutual communication between our branches, and the enthusiastic contribution from our participants. However, this fruitful accomplishment is never the end. We strive the continuously evaluate and refine our programs, so that together with our growth and dedicated effort, we can realize our ultimate vision in the years ahead.

Words from our Volunteers

"Through all the activities such as the talk, discussion, I could see our effort could somehow inspire the local students to think more about their identity (ethic minority). "

"Educating middle school students to conduct investigations and do presentations with their own creative and critical thinking are not only mentally challenging but also emotionally rewarding."

"YAPM at Zhouqu attempted to empower local minority youth to become ambassadors for their own ethnic cultures in the form of summer institute. The 10-day activities succeeded in promoting the exchange between the locals and the external world as well as evoking students’ awareness and sense of responsibility to protect their traditional ethnic cultures. In summary, I consider this YAPM to be beneficial to both volunteers and local students."

"I realized that it was very urgent to protect the acient culture in rural places. I learnt a lot about Miao culture in Wen Dou and made many friends there. I tried my best to visit local people and recorded their culture."

"I think the YAPM is a great program to improve my social skills and leadership. I met many new friends and learnt a lot from them. It’s of great pleasure to stay with those campers and to learn and grow together. "

"I miss everything in Wendou—the green mountains and blue rivers; the enthusiastic and hospitable people and the innocent and artless smiling faces of those lovely children. The whole living environment is totally different with that in Hong Kong."