'SERIOUSLY, THIS INTERIM was, like, totally awesome!' Such was the classic teen-speak response of 16-year-old Monica Graves from Hong Kong International School when asked to describe her week of camping and kayaking around the islands of Phang Nga Bay near Phuket in Thailand.
Monica was one of a group of fifteen HKIS students and teachers who were undaunted by the recent tsunami-related events in the Indian Ocean, and who held the view that the best way to assist Thailand's wave-battered tourism industry was to go there and support the local operators.
Every year the entire HKIS high school student body participates in a programme known as Interim, during which small groups of students and their teachers embark on service, adventure and cultural experiences in Hong Kong and the region.
This year, some 36 groups travelled outside Hong Kong as far afield as Fiji, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and India, while others visited China, Japan, Australia and Southeast Asia. Planning was buffeted by the tsunami, as many parental concerns were expressed about the safety of the three adventure programmes on offer in the Phuket-Krabi region of southern Thailand.
These concerns ranged from the establishment of sound evacuation procedures and the provision of a safe water supply, to the presence of floating debris, dead bodies and even ghosts.
The school's response was to send an inspection team to Phuket in February, which visited every venue on the proposed tours, as well as local hospitals and other providers of basic services. They saw the clean-up first-hand and returned to Hong Kong with sufficient data and photographs to convince most of the worried parents that the students' adventure tours would be unaffected.