LO7-Recognise and consider the ethics implications of choices and actions.
Over the last two years I have been a participant in the Hougang Care Center activity using dance and Zumba. Over the last 10 years at UWC I have participated in numerous local services including fresh fruit Friday and Evergreen Care Center. However my time in the Hougang Care Center service was the hardest and most challenging that I have experienced during my time at the school. I believe that this is the case because there were a myriad of cultural differences between the group running the service inclusive of my cell and the participants that we catered to. The group that we worked with from the Hougang Care Center were local Singaporean men who are much older than us, which obviously meant that they had different values to us. They raised multiple times during our service lessons that they were not happy with the way that we ran the service, nor the music that we played or the videos that were put up for the dances, and they weren’t even happy with the way that we dressed. To us running the service this was a massive culture shock even though we’ve grown up in Singapore going to the school you don’t expect that kind of reaction however although it did throw us off, it taught me to respect different viewpoints. Learning outcome 7, regarding considering of ethical implications of choices was a massive takeaway from this activity. Even though at first it seemed like the people from the service were being pedantic, we have to understand that they came from a place of concern. Once we were able to brainstorm and deal with the reaction in a positive light in a respectful manner and reflect on the consequences and ethical implications of our choices in terms of how they may feel and how they might react, we were able to change our methods and cater to them to the best of our abilities. Although it was a challenging experience I would not go back and change it. I think that I learnt a lot from it and I am very grateful to have participated in the service.
