| Orphans International America Our Institutional Philosophy: Raising Global Citizens |
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| � Liberal Arts in Action � Unity in Diversity � International, Intercultural, Intergenerational � Internet-Connected � Interfaith Service to Humanity Liberal Arts in Action. International Christian University (ICU), founded following World War II in the fire-bombed city of Tokyo, noted the urgency of the challenge to provide a liberal education in its recent fiftieth anniversary publication: "We face a great turning point in history today. Urgent and grave problems surround us, with a diversification of values, drastic changes in the international environment, the development of the information-based society and the global environmental crisis. In order to solve these problems, we must apply creative measures based on liberal thinking which transcends the existing boundaries of specialization. What is needed is not simply just book learning, but �Liberal Arts in Action,� to carve out the future of mankind. This stands as a fine summary for the collective approach of Orphans International. Unity in Diversity. The motto of Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia, borrowed verbatim from the Indonesia government, is �Gotong Royong� � �Working Together,� or �Unity In Diversity� (literally, �Mutual Assistance�). This echoes America�s own motto, e pluribus unum, or �from many, one.� In Guyana, the national motto is �One People. One Nation. One Destiny.� In Haiti, the national motto is similar: "L'union Fate La Force" - "in union there is strength." Diversity is not only beneficial because it helps society, it also helps the individual; it fosters personal growth, tolerance and is proven to enhance learning. A survey of 45,000 elite university students over 20 years, authored by the former presidents of Harvard and Princeton, was issued in 1998; the University of Michigan�s president summarized the survey results, �Our research confirms what we have experienced firsthand as educators: that diversity enhances learning. Encountering those who are different allows students to learn about each others similarities and differences and to destroy stereotypes.� A professor of psychology at the university adds that white students who had attended colleges with the most diverse student bodies experienced the greatest growth in active thinking process, in motivation to achieve and in intellectual self-confidence. All institutions in Indonesia are required by law to have as their core value the Pancasila to maintain a coherent and unified society, as institutions in Guyana are expected to teach loyalty to the nation and its humane principles. The concept of unity in diversity is expressed by the Orphans International emphasis that girls are equal to boys, that ethnic Chinese-Indonesians or Chino-Guyanese are as worthy � and Indonesian or Guyanese � as native Indonesians, or Guyanese of African or Indian decent, that Moslems, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus are all equally valued, that neither the Third World nor the First is �better,� and that all children should grow up free of bias. International, Intercultural and Intergenerational. It is interesting to note that many Indonesian intellectuals emulate the melting pot known as America. Writes one, �The United States is an outstanding example of highly diverse racial and ethnic groups trying to live together. Bringing the �hyphenated Americans,� German-, Chinese-, Afro- to mention just a few, into the main-stream has been a central concern of recent times. The only vehicle available for this assimilation is public school education. By the same token, national education (in Indonesia) should provide all citizens � regardless of ethnic backgrounds, religions or gender � with equal opportunity to be part of the mainstream.� The campuses of Orphans International are being built specifically as intergenerational institutions. The New York Public School System runs an after-school program for children and adults known as the Beacon Program that is also intergenerational. According to its literature, �The belief that youth benefit from a multigenerational atmosphere guides [our program] in offering services and activities to families of youth participants, and to adults, children and seniors. This holistic, inclusive approach makes the Beacon a genuine community development program.� Although Orphans International is specifically charted to help children, bringing seniors onto the campuses is as much about helping children grow up in an intergenerational setting with all of the advantages this creates, as it is to merely provide security to a small number of our world�s elderly. Internet-Connected: Modern Technology and the World Wide Web. There exists now a growing �digital divide� between rich and poor nations. Although we cannot predict where technology will take us in the next 15 years, nor how much of it will be available in Sulawesi, Haiti, or Guyana, one can assume that, based on general trends today, television will continue to merge with the computer, and that the Internet will be the most unifying element of modern technology. Orphans International plans to help bridge this digital divide, wiring its campuses to the World Wide Web. The challenge, however, is that in Indonesia atelephone line connection adn take years; we requested four lines for our site in Sulawesi in August 2001 and are still waiting. In Haiti, both telephone and electricity lines work intermittingly. The World Wide Web is already making significant inroads into Southeast Asia and South America. In Malaysia, a 27 square mile �Multi-Media Super Corridor� was started in 1996 and is expected to take two decades to complete; the New York Times has dubbed this project �Malaysia�s own Silicon Valley.� Venezuela, Guyana�s neighbor to the west, is similarly one of South America�s most wired nations. The World Accessible On-Line. Orphans International expects that, as hospitals today are reaching new patients on-line, hospitals of the future will be able to readily diagnose illnesses and prescribe treatment modalities by measuring a patent�s vital statistics, viewing x-rays, and interviewing the patient both verbally and visually, while monitoring live heart and lung scans. Similarly, education will continue to advance into the future through the Internet, and the availability of enormous databases, libraries, even one-on-one tutoring and guidance will be not only the exception, but the standard. The U.S. Library of Congress, for example, is moving its collection on-line rapidly; much of this report has been produced as a result of this. Sulawesi�s proximity to Singapore, the high-tech capital of Southeast Asia, and Georgetown�s proximity to Caracas, should ensure access to up-to-date technology via satellite feed and have enormous implications for all four of our components: Orphanage, Academy, Health & Dental Clinics and Eldercare Complex. Orphans International now hosts our own Website (internationalorhans.org). Much of the information represented in our research will be available soon both on-line and on interactive CD; this will be the start of our institutional embrace of modern technology. Singapore As An Example. Developed Asia � particularly Japan, Taiwan and Singapore � has already embraced these emerging technologies: �The Internet is everywhere in Singapore � on billboards, television, in the newspapers, in the mouths and minds of government officials and businesspeople, even in ads on taxis and buses. This country is betting its future on the Internet. Its ambitious plans, and its formidable capabilities, are likely to soon make it the world�s most wired nation. Indeed, Singapore is poised to become the world�s first true �digital nation.� How Singapore will both retain its character and embrace the Internet will be a fascinating story, one loaded with implications for Asia and the rest of the world. Despite its small size, it is an economic powerhouse in Asia. Even in the midst of the region�s worst economic crisis since World War II, the World Economic Forum in Switzerland ranks Singapore as the world�s most competitive economy. The country experienced a decade of explosive growth, as much as 8% per year, as one of the �Asian tigers.� The current economic crisis has slowed its growth to a flat rate today, but Singapore has escaped the catastrophic economic collapse of its neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia. Orphans International plans to use this technology to the use of our children. Software billionaire Michael Saylor announced plans in March 2000 for a Web-based university providing �a free education for everyone on earth.� He envisions Bill Clinton teaching politics, Warren Buffet lecturing on investing, and Steven Spielberg on filmmaking; he says they will be drawn by the opportunity to make their thoughts available to the world for all eternity. Orphans International's eventual Richard Livingston Luce Computer Center in Indonesia and our Betty Millard Computer Center in Guyana will allow the children to stay on campus to attend such an international and affordable university. Elementary Schools Also Benefit From Web connectivity. In 1999 the state of Wyoming became the first state to require all of its primary schools to become wired to the Internet, and the state average is now one computer to every eight children. The People�s Progressive Party (PPP) of Guyana, founded by its former president Cheddi Jagan, states on its Website that, �The Internet is gradually playing a greater part in our communications activities. For this reason, our government has facilitated its introduction and expansion in our country. The PPP recognizes the potential the Internet can play in Guyana�s growth.� E-Mail is the Future. The statistics speak for themselves � the telephone will continue to merge into our computers, and electronic mail will be the dominant form of future communication: 1999 � 20 million Internet domains (Websites) � 70 million Americans with e-mail � 263 million people globally with e-mail � 100 million messages are sent per day. 2001 � 320 million Internet users worldwide � 500 million messages will be sent per day 2005 � 500 billion messages will be sent per day Orphans International believes that the Internet is the foundation for our campus� Elder-World Links and future American or European educational tie-ins, including the possibility of our Academies graduates obtaining American or European undergraduate college degrees without leaving our campuses. However, people will always relate to people. One thousand years ago there were limits on how many people one person could talk to. Improved roads, increased human interaction, and the Industrial Revolution brought forward another quantum leap. The Internet is the next great leap forward. Marshall McLeun�s observations of a �global village� have been confirmed: the children of a literal village on the other side of the world can now � through modern technology � talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Although still mostly in English, they have access to the en-tire world. Combining both Marshall McLean and Hillary Clinton, Orphans International holds that it takes a global village to raise a child. Interfaith Service to Humanity. The two principal schools of both academies are to be named after American presidents who believed strongly in the need to give back to society: Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy is perhaps best remembered for his words � to be memorialized on a plaque outside our John F. Kennedy Junior Academies � �Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you an do for your country.� The Woodrow Wilson International Centers will remember one of the strongest forces behind the League of Nations, a man who epitomized the concept of service to humanity. Each of the memorials on the Institutes� campuses � all 50 � will honor women and men from around the world who have offered service, and often their very lives, to better humanity. It is important to note that Orphans International is being built on a foundation both sacred and profane. We are committed to the dual principles of both God and Humanity. Many of our board members belong to specific faith traditions -- Christian, Buddhist, Hindu -- while others seek a higher truth independently. On the theological side, both the Bible and the Koran speak of the need to help the less fortunate in a religious context: �What good is it to profess faith without practicing it? Such faith has no power to save one, has it? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food for the day and you say to them, Goodbye and good luck!� Keep warm and well fed,� but do not meet their bodily needs, what good is that?� James 1:14-16) �It is not righteousness, that ye turn your faces towards the East or West; but it is righteousness to believe in God Almighty, the Scripture, and the Prophets; to spend of your wealth for the love of God Almighty to kinsfolk, and to orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer and to those who ask for help.� (Quran 2:177) Likewise, modern secular governments may be humanitarian in a sectarian sense. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, believed in four freedoms: the freedom from fear and from want, and the freedom of belief and expression. Dag Hammarskj�ld, the great Swedish statesman and secretary-general of the United Nations, observed that, �In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.� Nelson Rockefeller, concluding his Report on the Americas, wrote: �The concern of man is man. And man must be the concern not only of his own government, but of all the governments and all people. If we are not our brother�s keeper, we are at least our brother�s brother. If we fail in our awareness or commitment to this essential concept, we will have failed ourselves in the most critical way.� |
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| This site optimized for 800 X 600, 16 bit colors and contains a Java driven database. The site is best viewed with Netscape 4.x or better. This website does not view properly with AOL, however you may PRINT from AOL without problem. Revised Feb. 20, 2004. Copyright 2001 Orphans International America note: the background of this websute is whitewashed cement block typical of proposed Fondation Orphans International d'Haiti housing. |
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