Most of Experience in Youth Overseas Volunteer Service Is About Introspection of Life and Studies
Time: 2017-12-17 16:35 Source: Interviewed, Drafted and Edited by Hsieh Chia-Hsing
Ministry of Education held the “2016 Youth Overseas Peace Volunteer Group Sharing & Presentation Ceremony” today (17th day). A lot of the university youth volunteers considered that participation in the overseas volunteer activities benefited them a lot and enabled them to start introspection. Some of the volunteers said that the elementary school students in Cambodia walked onto the platform to answer questions with bare feet and show respect to teachers. This made all volunteers so moved and start reviewing their learning attitude when studying in school.
Ministry of Education honored the outstanding overseas volunteer service groups on 17th day, and organized the first youth overseas volunteer exposition to invite volunteer service experts to share their overseas stories. Many of the youth who shared their stores on the stage emphasized that participation in overseas volunteer service developed their visions, and they started to introspect their life after seeing the limited living resources locally against the convenient life in Taiwan, when providing services in a foreign country. CYCU “CAM with Me-Cambodia 12 Classes” chose to head for Cambodia and share the interesting English teaching skills with the local classrooms through workshops. The member, Wang Ssi-Han, felt impressed about the local elementary school students, who always put their palms together devotedly and said thank you to teachers and sit down after answering questions raised by teachers, and even would walk onto the platform with bare feet when being called by teachers to answer questions. She eventually realized that these students were trying to show their respect toward teachers. She said: “(her personal voice) When we had in-depth knowledge about the custom and tradition of Cambodia, we found that these children believed that the platform, where teachers were standing, was very sacred and respectful. Therefore, they left shoes on their positions and walked onto the platform with bare feet in order to show respect toward teachers. In fact, as living in Taiwan or university, we should introspect whether we have cherished every chance to learn or respected each teacher who stood on the platform to teach you knowledge.” Taipei Medical University’s Feng-Xin Overseas Swaziland Medical Team provided the volunteer clinic service in the country of South Africa, Swaziland, where lacked medical resources badly. The member, Hsiao Tao-Wen, recalled that he was impressed by a local aged woman who said that she took 8 hours to arrive at the location where the volunteer clinic service was provided by walking. He also considered that they should be deemed as exchanging cultures rather than providing service, because “the service does not mean the hand up or hand down to get charity and pity, but hand inside to shake hands with the service recipients and make friend with them”.
