What’s your name? Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Waranya Chaiyapoomsakun and I’m a third year student studying at Faculty of Social Science. My major is Political Science. I have a passion to work with kids.
What do you think the most important social challenges are at the moment? (In your city? Or in your country? Or globally?)
The most important social challenge in my opinion is education. I used to study at the Opportunity Expansion School and the quality of teaching and academic resources were not as good as other schools at the same level. One teacher taught various subjects but he or she was not qualified to teach due to lack of proper knowledge in subjects they taught. As a result, students’ knowledge was limited and not good enough to be improved.
What are you doing to address this challenge or what do you hope to do?
I joined the English club and there were some foreign volunteers to teach English to us who lived up-country. Both teachers and students were satisfied with studying with foreign teachers so O-Net scores of our school were higher and kids were not afraid of talking to foreigners.
How do you think students/young people can play a role in helping solve these challenges?
Yes. Doing volunteer work up-country, sharing knowledge to kids, creating children’s books, helping build a library or doing whatever you are good at to help kids get more opportunities for learning were great.
What did you learn at the SEASIN studio?
I’ve learned from taking part in activities such as group discussion on the most important problems we’ve faced today in order to share our idea and try to think out of the box. It’s also a way to find solutions for people who have common problems.
Has the SEASIN studio introduced you to new ways of thinking/working? Has it changed your perspective or your behaviour?
Yes, but I thought the workshop length was too short so we were not able to find new thinking process clearly. Joining SEASIN studio made me change a bit anyway. When it comes to joining activities, I used to focus only on myself but after I joined this activity, I tend to listen more to surrounding people and my team to achieve our objectives.
What does ‘social innovation’ mean to you?
It could probably mean cooperation by various factors in society gathering together to solve problems effectively and in the long run. Activities can be conducted such as launching projects to deal with unresolved issues.
Do you think it is important that universities play a role in the community that is more than as academia?
I think it’s important because universities can guarantee and build up trust. If universities take part in any activities, people or participants are likely to have trust that it will have more chance to be successful as the reputation of university is something they can trust on.
What can universities do to help students become better problem solvers of future challenges?
Universities can provide spaces for students to share problems they’ve faced through activities or student clubs and they could finally find the best solutions to tackle problems occurred.
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