SINGAPORE TRIP 4

“To live is not to live for one's self alone; let us help one another.” - Menander

It was a rather full on day at the conference today with workshops and discussions with the delegates. One of the good things about attending such conferences is that one gets to meet many people from all around the world, and these are people who share one’s own passions about the field one works in. The conference has delegates from all over the world, and even though it is primarily an Asia/Pacific conference, it has delegates from the Americas, Europe and Africa also.

I met a delegate from Nepal who is very keen to collaborate with me as she is in the process of redesigning a medical school curriculum in her University and some of the work that I have been carrying out could be used there. She mentioned that they have many people from all over the world working on the project and that it has so far been very successful thanks to the expertise they bring to it. I think it is fantastic that we can work together on international projects like this, which allow us to transcend national barriers and work towards a global common good.

Working in the academic field, I am perhaps a little spoilt as I meet people who are idealistic, devoted to teaching and learning, research, and of course are like me, citizens of the world. The question is, what strategy can we use to spread this attitude outside this select group? I think given time, it is not an unlikely or far-fetched scenario. At this stage in history the world is being threatened with many global problems that require world collaboration in order to resolve them. We are isolationist and non-cooperational, not only at our own risk, but also globally.

Our only salvation is by building bridges across the divides of nationality and language, by tolerating differences in religion and political idealism, by understanding people’s different needs and wants, by accepting that all people of all races have the same rights and privileges.