Each snapshot Becky Zhang ’18 captured shares the raw, unveiled story of an individual Hong Kong helper.

Through the George H. P. Dwight 1945 Internship Fund granted by Groton, Becky initiated her project in mid-February, inspired by the “Humans of New York” Facebook page, to focus on disclosing the stories of Filipino domestic workers living in Hong Kong.

Becky grew up in Hong Kong for the majority of her life. Like many other families, her family hired a full-time domestic helper from the Philippines. “Foreign domestic workers, or ‘helpers,’ are commonly employed in middle-class and above households in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other countries in Southeast Asia,” Zhang explained. “Helpers perform a variety of tasks that range from caring for children and the elderly to cooking, cleaning, and errand-running.”

Becky ZhangBecky Zhang

Groton encourages students like Zhang to exemplify and act out the school motto with funding from grants offered each year by specific committees. Grants allow for students to implement their proposed plans from teaching soccer in Tibet to interviewing the elderly for a documentary in the Bronx.

“I hope that when people see my Facebook page, people will gain a better understanding of the various struggles helpers have gone through in terms of financial difficulties, distance away from their family and children, the culture shock from living and working in a new country, and disrespect or abuse from employers or other Hong Kong citizens,” Zhang concluded.

Grants allow for students to challenge themselves to work outside their familiar and comfortable environments  and reach out to new communities. Blair Donohue ’18 has taken interest in public health even before starting her Groton career. As she began her internship with Partners for Conservation, she realized her zeal for public health. When it came time to apply for a grant, she narrowed her scope of interest to understanding the different levels of social and economic stigmatization and the difficulties clouding the issue of malnutrition.

Blair Donoghue ‘18, recipient of this year’s Lawrence Global Issues Scholars Fund visited a community of historically marginalized people around the Volcano National Park in Rwanda. Blair originally intended to simply learn more about public health but she also found herself using her linguistic abilities.

“I went to the opening of the first veterinary clinic in Rwanda,” Blair noted. “Of course, that in itself was a very exciting experience, but the most rewarding part of it for me was using languages other than my native language to communicate with the other guests. I spoke French with a group of Swedish doctors and German with the ambassador for Germany. It was incredible to find common ground with people based on common language.”

Blair plans to start a public health initiative where she will work to educate the community on how to best combat malnutrition. She also hopes to share her work with the Groton community in the fall through a presentation.

Blair Donhue
Lily Cratsley ’19 was awarded the Groton Opportunity for Leadership Development (GOLD) Fund and spent one month in India working at the National Association for the Blind’s Sabita and Saradindu Centre for Blind Women in New Delhi. She taught and got to know the students with one main goal for herself: empowerment. Cratsley had an epiphany moment.

“The girls at the school taught me that nothing in the world or beyond is more important than being true to yourself,” Lily reflected. “These girls see so much more than the seeing can allow. This most vulnerable state is noticed by these girls because it is in the way we speak and the way we use our body, things that we alter far less than our appearance to identify who we are.”

        Indeed, the students’ accounts prove that language and cultural barriers are surmountable.

Peter Zhang ’17, together with recent alumni William Sun ’16 and William Zhang ’16, conducted a ten-day program at the Zhejiang Vocational College of Special Education in China. Zhang visited Hangzhou last summer and proposed a plan to help students with mental disabilities. The Groton students attended classes, participated in sports, and conducted interviews of several families. Zhang remarked that he hopes to “improve the program by bringing with [him], this time, some American teachers who were formerly involved in special education so that we could bring forth the conceptual changes.”

The phrase “cui servire est regnare” is multifaceted. Though many understand it as to serve and volunteer physically in a tangible, materialistic sense, cui servire could take on the Hebrew translation of the verb to know: yada.

        Yada means to share love and show mercy and truly intimately acquaint oneself with another individual. Serving most often takes on a superficial level—giving so that one receives. However, yada despite its first meaning of knowing, scrapes up the underlying meaning of developing a “kin” relationship. As Endicott Peabody wanted for his then students to show exemplify muscular Christianity, current Groton students act and serve with not only the mindset to exchange cultures, but also to truly know the person, the way Peabody would have done.