Today, during the Service Learning pre-conference that I’ve been attending at Jakarta International School, we went on a half hour walk around the outer walls of the school compound. It’s worth noting that the sprawling campus of JIS is accessed through a multi-gated, prison-like entry way. Cars are inspected and then drive over hydraulic roadblocks that would stop a tank. The entirety of the school is surrounded by a five meter wall, topped with layers of barbed wire. On the other side, lies a peaceful little residential section of Jakarta’s urban sprawl. This was where we went for a wander.

A neighbourhood sports ground and beyond the fence, JIS sports facilities.

What struck me about the walk was the potential for accessibility of service-learning opportunities so close at hand. I think when developing service-learning programs, the scale of potential opportunities can be daunting. Perhaps scaling it locally might make it less so. It could even create opportunities where the travel time is negligible, and may even fit in a double period, instead of requiring intensive timetable juggling and struggles with priorities of time-use in school.

In addition to the notion of acting locally while thinking globally, these sorts of services may have the effect of building legitimate connections with local community, as well as deeper embedding the relationships and community involvement of the school, and its community and culture, with the local culture. I wonder how long it may take before a deeper relationship like this might become more reciprocal as well. Where and how does the community get to make its contribution to the school? Where and how is their mark made? How can that clearly financially imbalanced relationship become a bit more democratized and evened.

For all of your inflatable needs.

What strikes me about always heading far away from our schools for service actions is that we promote the notion of an otherness being at a distance, and a feeling that to make a change, we need to make a monstrous effort. Additionally, it’s concerning that the attraction to service projects be affected by the appeal of the travel involved. Do we want authentic service-mindedness, or service tourism?

It’s similar to how I feel about the self-importance or marketability that can be generated by the way my school, and many others, use student travel. Groups from my school regularly go overseas to compete athletically, and less so but also for events in other disciplines. They often do these things in a manner where the destination has even less bearing on what they’re going to do than it would in a service learning context. In what way is playing tennis against a team in Seoul more valuable to their athletic growth than against another Yokohama, Tokyo or more local competitor? The question of value is even more acute if we imagine how many local experiences we would potentially be able to resource at a similar budget to a couple of overseas/distance excursions.

Scrap metals piling up at the local recycling depot.

Card and boxes stacking up at the local recycling depot.

I think we really need to bear in mind that these students are not necessarily international sports competitors, nor employees of global NGOs. They are mostly just wealthy kids whose schools promote themselves through the use of these arguably misdirected focuses of resources. There may well be some students who will go on to be serious competitors. But for every one of those who may eventually go deeper into the sport, there will be scores of others who could barely be bothered to make it to every practice, yet went to compete abroad.

The same arguments could well be made for my attendance at this conference and others like it. I value these experiences, I enjoy them and benefit from them, I even, hopefully, take away valuable ideas to bring back home. But I wonder whether it is the most appropriate use of resources. What other ways could I work towards similar personal and professional growth?

Chicken coops pile up next to nearly every home.

Walking around the school for me re-cemented the potential for a local approach to service-learning, and further, really caused me to reflect on the local/global use of resources in the setting of wealthy schools, attended by wealthy communities, such as Jakarta IS, and my own.