Very Well Thailand Service Trip
During last semester break, a group of HKU students from Swire Hall and Starr Hall put aside their academic work temporarily, and start the Very Well Project in Thailand, with the aids of HEDO.
We stayed in a place called Roy Wan which is located at the Southern part of Thailand. It is a weekend school for the children aged between six and eighteen from nearby villages. It is being run by a local educator P. Ju and a Thailand Social Service firm Dalaa. Long term and short term volunteers were both welcomed for aids in construction and education purpose.
Our work mainly divided by three working groups: the construction team, the cooking team and the cleaning team. During our stay, the construction team targeted for building a small library for future use; the cooking team in charge of all meals for the volunteers; the cleaning team need to recycle the waste and keep the whole area clean and tidy. And in weekend, we all become amateur teachers to take care of over hundreds of children. All of us enjoy our work and we evaluated for our performance everyday.
We were totally living in the wild, we did not have proper washroom; our living room was a tree house. Without network and any kind of the electronic appliances, we mentally connected to the natural beauty. The experience is totally different from where are we living in.
In our stay, apart from 22 of us, there are also volunteers from France, Swiss and Japan. We sleep together, work together and eat together. We shared with each other our local culture. For instance, we have prepared some Hong Kong Traditional food like dumplings and sweet soup. We also learned about one of the Thai culture: simple life and stay optimistic.
The report from their service trip could be downloaded here.