Service and Sustainable Development
![SDGs](https://portfolios.uwcsea.edu.sg/mccle51104/files/2020/09/SDGs.png)
What is “service”? What is “sustainable development”? To be honest, I don’t know.
What I do know is that Service and Sustainable Development are two sides of the same coin – Sustainable Development basically means individuals and societies living in systems that can be improved on and continued indefinitely to maintain a good quality of life for all. Sustainable Development does not mean creating the perfect global lifestyle that never changes – technology evolves and it is the nature of all environments to have flucuations, so that wouldn’t make sense. What it means is creating true human happiness that does not detriment the happiness or opportunities for happiness of future generations. Service is action in pursuit of this, usually in the form of directly helping others.
But notice the “basically”. It took me years to grasp these concepts, but it will take me a lifetime to understand why this world and its systems are unsustainable and not maximising happiness. And it will take another to find out what a sustainable, happy world would look like.
Isn’t that wonderful? A lifetime of learning, growing, dreaming, and connecting with the Earth. Join me on my journey.
The Future of Food is Now – Being Among the First People in the World to Eat Cultured Chicken
About a week ago, I read the headline in the Straits Times: "In a world first, cultured chicken meat approved for sale in Singapore". I was immediately thrilled. Cultured meat, which is meat made by propagating animal cells and thus requires no slaughter, was finally...
Leaders of Environmental Initiatives CAS Reflection #1
Because it is the October break right now and I have a lot of free time, I have decided to make this a written reflection. It has now been 4 weeks as chair of the Leaders of Environmental Initiatives, and I feel like the way that I approach my leadership position has...
Generation. Education. Period. CAS Reflection #1
You can listen to my reflection here. There is some traffic noise at the beginning, but hopefully what I am saying is still audible. I say in this reflection that I am helping to work the group through the Investigation stage of service. We are using presentations...
Service – Leaders of Environmental Initiatives Introduction
Here is my thinking on this service learning after only just starting.
Service – Generation. Education. Period. Introduction
Here are my thoughts about co-chairing GEP, before my first session.
Skills I have learned through Service
Throughout my almost 5 years at UWC, I have learned lots of soft and hard skills through service. And yet I had never really sat down and reflected on them. To assist in brainstorming, perhaps I should list out all of the services I have been a part of: Grey Area GC...
A Reflection on Grade 9 Service – NYAA
The video is linked here. I posted this so late as I had forgotten to take this out of the drafts folder.
Joining the High School Service Executive
Towards the end of my third year at UWC, I decided that I wanted to contribute something more meaningful to the school than chores for various college services. So, after some encouragment from friends, I signed up to be a College Service executive officer. After the...
Rainforest Restoration Project – Session 6
We had to do more general chores today, and we quickly split into groups to do necessary jobs around the nursery. I ended up doing some watering (which I now do as I wait for the others to arrive), breaking up the soil (increasingly popular with the male members),...
Rainforest Restoration Project – Session 5
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