Listen to thisHello from Changsha Social Work College located in a South Central China city of 7 million people that claimed 7 of the Olympic Gold Medalists at Sydney 2000. This is the Provincial City of Mao Tzetung's historic Hunan Province with a population of 65 million people. The Changsha Social Work College with 12,000 students invited this Lao Wai or visitor to give five lectures and a public speech at “Time Square" the campus amphitheatre. Interpreter Tu Bing Lan and I had 36 hours to prepare!
Family Holiday Visit to Shaoshan Birthplace of Mao Tzetung
Try to imagine 30 degree C heat and knees shaking for both speaker and interpreter, speaking one phrase at a time.....followed by a pause for interpreting.....and then back to the speaker for another phrase. I offer notes from my Towards a Responsive Social Work & Social Work Research in China for the 21st Century speech as follows:
"I am honoured to have been given this opportunity to address you today about the future of Social Work in China.....As a “Come-From-Away" it might be rightly argued that I know very little about the unique challenges you will face as the future leaders of Social Work in China.....The more I have learned about Social Work in different parts of the world during the past 30 years, the more I know what I don't know.....But I do know that without investment in the nation's people, alongside economic and technological investment, then the unintended consequences of social change will be great.....As the aspirations of a nation's peoples are raised, so it is that opportunities must be created for these aspirations to be realised.....China's 21st Century Revolution will be quite unlike its 20th Century Revolution.....China's 21st Century Revolution will involve a knowledge revolution; and a dramatic re-positioning of this great nation with its rich cultural traditions.....China's 21st Century Revolution will see a synthesis of old knowledge and new technology to address challenges presented by a new generation that is truly global in both outlook and aspirations."
Changsha Social Work College Students at Time Square Speech
"... China's 21st Century Revolution will involve thinking beyond the accumulation of wealth; thinking instead about how to use the nation's wealth to benefit everyone ... It will be the role of China's social workers to find new ways of responding to the social and rehabilitation needs of those least able to care for themselves.....This will involve a level of social investment that targets pro-active capability amongst the people, not simply reaction to disadvantage or disability.....The leaders of China's 21st Century Revolution will need to seek a new kind of “praxis", where theory-into-action draws on both the political teachings of the 20th Century thinkers as well as the contributions of China's ancient thinkers.....China's 21st Century Revolution will be about “Social Work Praxis" or “theory-into-action" in local villages, provincial towns and urban centres across the country ... Responsiveness to the social and cultural needs of local peoples will be the special contribution that social workers in China will bring to the new Long March required during the 21st Century Revolution ... It is not a just a matter of China's social workers “working harder" but instead “working smarter" using the knowledge and traditions within China, as well as borrowing selectively from elsewhere ... I offer back to you, in closing, some strategic principles written by the ancient Chinese scholar Sun Tzu, now influential in the West ..."
