The SAO's service-learning programmes are exhibiting a nice diversity. In late 2021, the 'We “ᴚ” Toys: Old Toy Repurposing Scheme' was held to promote resource recycling. The 21 participating students organized a toy collection campaign on campus, collecting more than 450 items, which were cleansed and restored and then passed onto children from 45 low-income families living in Shum Shui Po in a Toy Exchange Carnival during Christmas. The scheme also included a DIY toy workshop that taught children to repurpose recyclables into toys.
Another recent initiative was the 'Best Wishes to the Elderly' life education programme that involved 23 students in nursing, psychology and social sciences. The programme began with helping students reflect on life and funeral arrangements. Students were taken on a guided tour to the Diamond Hill Funeral Parlour's coffin showroom, ash niches and Garden of Remembrance, and given a talk on end-of-life care by a social enterprise funeral planner. They then visited eight singleton elderly persons, chatting with them about the joys and sorrows of life and death matters over a board game, walking them through a questionnaire on critical illness arrangements and death planning, and helping them fulfil their small wishes.
Already well-versed in promoting Chinese etiquette through animation, the Tin Ka Ping Centre of Chinese Culture and the Department of Creative Arts under the School of Arts and Social Sciences recently started a new animation project for moral education in collaboration with The Salvation Army Tin Ka Ping School. The primary school invited teachers and students to design cartoon mascots and held a story-writing contest on these characters, while HKMU students in Animation and Visual Effects animated the mascots and turned the winning stories into an animation series.
