School: Hwa Chong Institution
    Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

4 students, ages 15 worked together to complete this Doors to Diplomacy project on March 24, 2009. They have participated in Doors to Diplomacy in the following year(s): 2009

Classes and Teachers: Mr Samuel LIm,

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://-

1. Description of Our Team

Our team of four, comprising Glendon (age 15), Nicholas (age 15), Brandon (age 15) and Canxiang (age 15) came together as a group because we were all passionate about global issues, especially underreported ones like Third World Debt. Nicholas was placed in charge of designing the website, Glendon and Canxiang were tasked with the research aspect of the project whilst Brandon as team leader supervised the entire process.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project aims to increase awareness about the pressing global situation of Third World Debt, including a historical overview of the issue and its roots; a thorough description of its damaging and crippling effects on Third World efforts to escape the cycle of poverty; deep analysis of key issues involved including who is to blame for the problem and whether this staggering amount of debt should be forgiven; possible solutions to the problem and an evaluation of their respective pros and cons; and finally comprehensive case studies to ground our findings in reality.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

One key issue that we had to overcome was that of time management, as our group members are all extremely active in academic and non-academic aspects of school life with many holding multiple student leadership portfolios. This meant that often, we were tied down with completing other tasks and this left us with minimal time to complete our project. In addition, we also faced difficulties in designing certain interactive elements of the site that were ultimately removed as we lacked the technical expertise to create these elements.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

We are now far more aware of our privileged lives when we consider the plight of the less fortunate especially those chained by Third World Debt, and many of our peers have reached similar views after visiting our site.

6. How did your activities and research for this Doors to Diplomacy Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

This project was submitted as part of our school's annual Project's Competition where students form teams to work on a particular research topic for their projects which are then evaluated and graded. Through the course of working on this project and overcoming various obstacles on the way, we learnt key skills like time management, group dynamics and synergy, and important technical skills in web design and multimedia. More importantly we discovered the amount of influence we could yield on our peers in raising awareness about issues like these that too often go underreported; and that it is through small efforts like these that big changes in the world can occur. Finally we found the Internet helpful not just as a huge resource from which to draw data and lines of research, but also as a platform for us to share our findings via our website.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your Doors to Diplomacy project?

In the course of this project each of our group members made use of personal computers or notebooks with each member owning at least one of the above computers. We also made heavy use of local reference libraries for research, and also computer software when working upon our final web product.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your Doors to Diplomacy project both on-line and in person.

Our website is to date only publicised within our school and its students, and such publicity whilst admittedly limited has been quite successful as our peers and teachers are impressed by what we are doing and the awareness about this pressing issue amongst the school population has risen. Indeed, our teacher-mentor has made plans for our group to create exhibitions and talks within our own school and other schools in our country to further raise awareness on this topic and broaden our audience to include peers from other local institutions.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

Whilst to date our project has made limited impact amongst the school population, through further efforts as described above we hope to extend this impact and awareness to our peers in other local institutions. In general we have received much feedback from the users of our site in areas like the improvement of multimedia and the addition of interactivity, and we will continue to improve in these areas even after the submission deadline for Doors to Diplomacy.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

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5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

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