A. General
Q: What is the role of Hong Kong volunteers in YAPM?
Hong Kong volunteers will be act as ambassadors to understand the local minority culture and work with the local youth on selected research topic about their culture and ways to preserve their unique culture from urbanization. Hong Kong volunteers will often play the important role of interpreter as they have a good command on both English and Mandarin.
Q: Why should I participate in the YAPM?
Recommendatory feedbacks were received from the report of past YAPM volunteers. They would recommend YAPM for the following reasons:
1. An opportunity to practice Mandarin while doing voluntary work.
2. Meeting college students from outstanding universities in the United States (Stanford University), Beijing (Peking University, Tsinghua University), Shanghai (Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University), and different universities in Hong Kong
3. An eye-opening experience to touch the unique and amazing minority culture.
4. Understand the education regime in China better.
5. Able to excel their own experience and opinions on global / national / regional issues
B. Arrangements in relation to YAPM
Q: When and where will the YAPM institutes take place??
YAPM takes place in the summer of every year. It would a two-week program in July to August. Past sites of YAPM include Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei. The sites in 2010 include Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan and Guizhou Province. YAPM would be held in each site at different time during July and August. Details would be released in early June.
Q: How many TECC volunteers will be at each YAPM institute and how many middle school students are involved?
Each team will be composed of 2 - 3 Hong Kong TECC volunteers and 15-20 TECC volunteers from the United States, Shanghai, or Beijing. There will be approximately 50 middle school youths.
Q: How will I get from the airport to the institute?
Volunteers are requested to arrange their own transportation from Hong Kong, their own town or current location to the meeting point arranged by the site-in-charge. Usually the site is remote from the province capital, volunteers are expected to either join TECC volunteers from other places at the airport or go to the site by themselves to meet others at the site. The local transportation at site will be arranged by our Chinese counterparts or TECC HK.
Q: What do volunteers do there?
YAPM institute is divided into two parts. The first half is 'Summer Camp' which volunteers would meet the middle school students. Workshops about the local minority culture would be delivered and volunteers would work with the students to understand better about the culture. The second half would be in the form of qualitative research that after acquainting some basic understanding about the minority culture, volunteers would pay home visits to the students families and be able to have first hand information from the interviews with local minorities. However, the content of YAPM is subject to change every year.
Q: Is the trip safe?
We give top priority to the safety of our volunteers. The Chinese teams will conduct site visits in February each year to ensure that the living conditions are satisfactory with the local government giving the necessary support. Also, TECC HK would ensure every volunteer to purchase his own insurance before their departure.
C. Application
Q: Who is eligible to apply for YAPM?
All undergraduate students currently studying in the following tertiary institutions in Hong Kong are eligible to apply (except exchange students):
Hong Kong Baptist Uniersity
City University of Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Institute of Education
Lingnan University
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong Shue Yan University
The Open University of Hong Kong
Students must be physically fit and able to communicate in both English and Putonghua.
Q: What will the selection process be like?
The selection process would be conducted in the form of interview.
For details of important interview days, please refer to the homepage for YAPM of the year.
Q: How could one apply for YAPM?
TECC HK accepts applications through email only. Please click the following link to download the application form and send us the completed application form according to instructions contained therein.
Q. Does it cost me anything?
Yes. Each HK volunteers are responsible for their own transportation costs to sites and insurance. For details about expenses of volunteers, please refer to the FAQ for volunteers' expenses by clicking the link on the left navigation column.
Q: What kind of applicants are we looking for?
We welcome energetic and socially-minded students who have a passion on minority culture in China. Participants must be open-minded to diversity, be able to thrive in a team setting and can think on their feet. Multilingual applicants are preferred.
Q: How do we prepare for YAPM?
A pre-departure briefing will be held shortly after the list of successful applicants has been released. The volunteers will be briefed on further trip details. Past volunteers would be invited to share their experience with them. They may also go through a series of meetings as a team to prepare their presentation on behalf of TECC Hong Kong.
The deposit will be refunded to the participant in the form of cheque by mail or any other means as TECC(HK) thinks fit within one month after the completion of evaluation workshop according to the policy as stated below -