by Wendy Lin
Imagine yourself actually meeting the people living in these conditions: 1) More than one billion people live on less than $1 a day, and 238 million of them are young people. 2) There are 115 million children who do not attend primary school, and three-fifths of them are girls. 3) 15 million children have lost one or both of their parents to AIDS, and 860,000 children in Sub-Saharan Africa lost teachers who died from AIDS. Becoming a volunteer overseas allows you to see for yourself. In recent years more young people in Taiwan are volunteering in Malawi, Ghana, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Panama, and many other countries around the world. They help teach Chinese, English, public health, and important ideas that empower the poor, women, and children. Some help out in clinics, and some assist in building up case studies of patients via computer systems. This summer I volunteered in Myanmar for the second time. People know that Myanmar is a place where protesting monks are shot by the military government, and where massive foreign aid after a disastrous cyclone that killed more than 150,000 people was rejected. Pleople warn me that it must be very dangerous, so why take the risk? The Red Cross Society of Taiwan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have refused to support the volunteer group that I organized because they believe it is unsafe to visit Myanmar this year. But why would they consider Myanmar a dangerous country for volunteers? They tell you that after the cyclone an epidemic will break out, and the entire country will be affected with disease. But is it true? My volunteer group has been preparing for three months and we want to know the real reasons for preventing us from visiting the country. We consulted many experienced non-governmental organization workers as well as locals to ask what the situation was really like. And fortunately, we learned that the cities we planned to visit were far from the cyclone-hit areas. Yet on a deeper level we don’t want to lose the chance to help the people in Myanmar. Last summer, we visited some very poor monastic schools in the rural areas of Yangon, and I cannot forget how the teachers and students welcomed us. Their willingness to share their stories with us made us feel how close we were, even when we didn’t speak the same language. Finding the human connection, as I call it, is the reason we should volunteer abroad. It’s about giving, and the giving is mutual. Most volunteers believe that it is impossible to change the lives of the poor. But I believe that volunteering is a chance to share, and that interaction is an inspiration that grows as we experience more. We will never know what it will become in the future. We have also visited many overseas Chinese schools, whose aim was to pass on Chinese culture. We designed activities to tell students about emotion, relationships, basic health, and how to make plans for their careers. These Chinese communities are very much like Taiwan 20 or 30 years ago. We were treated with absolute sincerity and with great affection. I felt as if I was living in the world of Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne became a teacher in a beautiful place like Prince Edward Island! Volunteering should be about understanding and sharing with the people you meet. It is only through contact that you can know what you can give to each other. Volunteering overseas gives you culture shock to re-examine your own life, and it gives you a chance to make changes. Aside from what the mass media tells us, you can see the world for yourself, and start to map the world in your own perspective. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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