the FEELING Project

THIS PROJECT IS ABOUT

Access to mental health services in universities are often limited, however they provide a high volume of information through a network platform for students to self-query and self-help. In addition to active self-treatment of some students, there is a large population of students who do not take the initiative to seek professional help. Based on this knowledge gap, this project looks to innovates a new service model system, to which pursues a service experience that is more attractive and easier for especially international students from different cultures to accept. The project aims to help them build and maintain a healthy mental development environment to ensure a successful completion of their studies.

“Social networks are particularly important for students.”

（Jan Bamford 2008）

BRIEF

Taking into account the difficulties encountered by students who studies overseas, this project has designed a series of services in the forms of activities, competitions, gatherings and so on, aiming in particular to offer thoughtful services in a warm and non-academic way.

Leaving their home country to live and study on their own for the first time in a foreign environment, for many students can be an unnerving experience and can encounter various difficulties in their life and studies. Unhappy life and learning experiences may well cause unhealthy psychological issues, further more leading to more adverse effects. Issues such as language barriers, diet, and social phobia are of particular concern to both students studying overseas and researchers in this field. In view of the above, using cuisine as a starting point, this project is designed to support students' learning experience and psychological health by organizing a series of activities in collaboration with students, universities, charity organizations and other partners. Such activities would create opportunities to help students socialize in a happy atmosphere and environment. As such, they would be able to make friends with like-minded students and become used to new environments, while at the same time have the opportunity to practice and improve English language. In this regard, various cuisine-related topics are used as a means to bring students together where they can share local foods. Such experiences would give the students warm and unforgettable memories. Needless to say, such gatherings would also provide a great opportunity for students to share experiences studying overseas, which would create empathies among the students as well as help them find solutions to problems at hand. This project aims to encourage mutual learning and mutual support in order for the students to become used to new environments.

With regards to sustainability, I believe that the project has a great potential as it will diversify student activities, including organizing monthly or yearly activities on a sustainable basis, and making them a great fun to participate. Gradually, the activities would expand to include students from other countries, and further develop into an international event. Subsequently, through fun and colourful activities, the project will especially benefit those students who are socially shy, and improve their quality of life. Furthermore, I suggest setting up informal planning teams, mainly comprised of students, as students not only know them themselves best but also are best placed to discover students’ needs and understand students’ difficulties.

Since taking on this project, I have researched some of the activities and examples currently being practiced. Using student unions as an example, I discovered that the people who are using their services are also the same people who will benefit from this project. Student unions bodies main purpose is to support student.

This phenomenon makes me wonder why professional and large-scale activities do not achieve the desired results and the number of participants is below expectations. With these questions in mind, I approached the issue from the perspectives of both the contents and methodologies of activities and examined various ways and means to support the development of the project.

Initially, I started by researching professional psychological health service on campus, and learned through interviews that demand for psychological health services in liberal art colleges is higher than in other types of colleges (Jaime). I began to examine why students need counselling.

Following from a conversation with a student it became apparent to me that, rather than on how to help students obtain better counselling service, this project should focus on how to use non-formal means to reduce students’ demand for counselling service. This way the project will achieve its objectives, which is to proactively prevent psychological health issues and create a more favourable enabling environment for students. This is the objective of the project and psychological health service departments, as well as the l of charity organizations supporting Chinese students studying overseas.

In this project, participants will include students, volunteers, collaborators representing various partner organizations, and topic representatives. Students are divided into sharers and learners, while volunteers come from students themselves, student unions, and charity organizations. Students will be invited to share their rich experiences and academic aspirations, this includes

useful information, which can help another. Volunteers improve their own capabilities by participating in activities and networking with new friends. All in all, the project will address the need of each and every stakeholder and facilitate mutual learning and joint progress, and achieve a virtuous cycle. This is indeed the core value of the project.

Even if the project runs into difficulties and fails, or the number of participating students is limited, students will still be able to benefit from it from many aspects, for example, memorable experiences in tasting local cuisines or in participating in fun games. Therefore, from this point of view the project will have a positive impact on the student. The details of the project are provided below.