BUILDing a better world: How UTS BUILD made me reflect on my role as a global citizen

I recently completed the UTS BUILD Program which has been a journey of learning, building connections and above all, reflecting on my actions as a global citizen. Throughout BUILD I have attended seminars, completed online courses, participated in interactive workshops and attended a conference overseas.

For my first BUILD event, I attended a panel discussion, where one of the speakers, Sally Hetherington, Founder of the Human and Hope Association, made me more aware of the implications of “voluntourism”, which is where people travel overseas to participate in voluntary work for a charity or organisation usually aimed at alleviating poverty. I learned that tourists or short-term volunteers that visit orphanages in developing countries can unintentionally have a negative impact on those children in the orphanages – in some places, because orphanage voluntourism has become so popular, thousands of children have been removed from their families to fill these ‘orphanages’ and meet the demand of this form of tourism.

As these negative consequences are unintended, these problems are more likely to go unnoticed. As someone who is passionate about social justice, this talk inspired me to reflect and critique actions and particular methods to combat social injustice. The examples of ‘voluntourism’ and ‘orphanage tourism’ clearly show that there are complexities to combatting social justice and different interests to be taken into account. There are a lot of organisations that claim to make a positive difference; however, it is important to do your research to find the ones that actually do. For example, I found a charity ‘Save the Children’ which works with organisations to support families so that their children can stay with them and prevent them from being put in profit-only fake orphanages. This talk encouraged me to reflect and to think more critically about the impact of an individual’s actions regardless of their intentions. This will help ensure that when I volunteer or donate to an organisation, my time or money will go towards an initiative that makes a positive difference and does not have unintentional negative consequences.

Another reflective and thought-provoking experience I had during BUILD was attending the 4^th Global Peace Summit for Emerging Leaders at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand in January 2024. This was an opportunity that allowed me to step out of my comfort zone by travelling to a new country alone and navigating an international conference for the first time. During the peace summit, I listened to very serious and confronting stories shared by extremely inspiring speakers, and I was grateful to have the opportunity to hear from survivors of conflicts. I found that it was important to be open-minded to different perspectives and willing to learn when engaging with the topic of peace and conflict.

One of the speakers, Hassan Akkad, who is a Syrian refugee, filmmaker and human rights activist, talked about how propaganda and disinformation spread through conflict, saying that “in every conflict, the first casualty is always the truth.” He talked about how misinformation and disinformation has been especially prominent with the increasing use of social media. Hassan’s talk made me reflect on the importance of critiquing the information that I see online, and not always assuming that what I am seeing is the truth.

It was an extremely enriching experience to attend the Peace Summit and be able to hear from a diversity of perspectives throughout the conference and share my perspective on issues as well. I really enjoyed meeting and connecting with the other young delegates, who were from 48 different countries. Following the conference, I took an opportunity to further extend my knowledge on peace and conflict that I had gained from the Peace Summit by undertaking the BUILD-endorsed online course, Positive Peace Academy at the Institute of Economics and Peace. This course enabled me to get a deeper look at the factors contributing to conflict, particularly the long-term factors, and introduced me to the concept of ‘positive peace’ which concerns the attitudes, institutions and structures that sustain peaceful societies.

All of my experiences during BUILD allowed me to extend my knowledge on social justice topics and hear from different perspectives. BUILD challenged my thoughts and gave me an opportunity to reflect on my previous held assumptions and ideas about how to combat global injustices. UTS BUILD is a great opportunity if you would like to deepen your knowledge on social justice issues but most importantly, learn about the impact we all have as global citizens and the responsibility we have to strive for social equality in every facet of our lives.

Zara Horton
Bachelor of Communication (Social and Political Science) Bachelor of Laws