Nurturing global civic awareness through seminar on Filipino cultural heritage conservation
On 19/9, a seminar was co-organized by the Consulate General of the Philippines and our school, which concerns the cultural heritage conservation task in the Philippines after the Bohol Earthquake and devastation of typhoon Haiyan in 2013. The guest speaker of honour was Mr. Ivan Henares,who is currently the President of the Heritage Conservation Society of the Philippines and Secretary of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ (NCCA) and the National Committee on Monuments and Sites.
He introduced various tasks of cultural heritage and conservation in the Philippines, enabling students to know more about the Philippines and increase their awareness of events happened in other countries. Nowadays the world becomes more intertwined to one another, implying that we will instantly be aware of what happened in other remote countries and we cannot detach ourselves from them. Examples include the Ebola epidemic in Africa, the referendum of independence in Scotland, the Islamic State issue and situation in the Middle East, protests and demonstrations concerning the election of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong, etc. These are all current affairs worth our students’ notice. Apart from current affairs reading scheme, we have also designed a series of themed talks this year, which we would like to launch civic education through lectures and encourage students to be aware of global affairs, so as to expand students’ horizons and cultivate their world view.