Lo and behold. COIL 3.0 finally welcomes its day-one activities. It’s the first time we have ever gathered all the participants with principals, teachers, and students from the Netherlands, the Philippines, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. With our ice-breaking games, we get to know first-hand what it’s like for everyone to come from different cultural backgrounds. And after our two-hour session, we successfully compiled our cultural factsheets and debated the most controversial yet relatable topics.

Kick-starting our day, we got our principal, Dr. Gary Harfitt to deliver our grand opening speech. While acknowledging the efforts of the organizing committee, he inspired all the participants to continue their efforts to develop a cross-cultural understanding through the opportunities to interact with people from different backgrounds at COIL 3.0. With his words of encourgagement, all our activities on that day were as smooth as planned. The amount of feedback and engagment from everyone was even higher than expected.

Another highlight of the day would be the sharing done by our guest of honor, Dr. Florence Lau. Being someone who started CantoGather, an NGO focusing on language education for non-Chinese-speaking students, Dr. Lau has been involved in many community-based campaigns. Her NGO aims to empower the NCS to overcome their day-to-day challenges. Although she is not from the education field, she still managed to collaborate with different experts, developing the most suitable pedagogical methods for students who might be less advantaged or find it challenging to assimilate with their Cantonese-speaking counterparts. Her journey from guiding a small Chinese class to the community-wide programs involving many has empowered not only the language learners but also the volunteers and everyone involved.

And today, she once again managed to inspire our participants to stay humble and make great use of our power to give back to society. It’s safe to say that after hearing what she had in mind, we all have learned to not just live on our own. Instead, we could share our perceptions and differences. Eventually, we could co-construct a tight-knit community where we all find our similarities underneath.

With our upcoming days of COIL 3.0, we are certain that a more accepting society could be established. At the end of the day, communication and understanding are what lead to unity and a genuine community. Please also keep supporting our future activities and we can’t wait to have you join us on this journey of sharing peace and kindness as well!

Finally, COIL3.0 is about to start! In our dry run today, we get to meet with participants from the participating schools around the globe. Throughout our breakout room discussions and various activities, countless ideas were exchanged and we could see everyone so eager to share what they have from their cultural backgrounds. Despite our differences, we have surprisingly developed lots of shared opinions in our debates. It seems we have truly reached a mutual understanding and even a consensus even though it's only a two-hour rehearsal session.

In our formal round of COIL3.0, we can't wait to contribute even more to building a sustainable community with reduced conflicts and more importantly, peace. Stay with us and check out more on our journey to the 17 sustainable development goals raised by the United Nations!