iProject - Commitment of Hearts




Monday, 5 March 2007

iProject -100% satisfaction

I was one of the last members to join iProject and I did not regret AT ALL. Seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed the vegetarian food, the teaching of English, playing of games, the sceneries and the priceless experience as a whole.

I remember we were all very eager to go to Vietnam that we planned the whole trip thoroughly. Some of my friends even had to forsake their sleeping time just to plan for the next day. Well actually everyone had to cut down on their sleeping time as we adopted the day by day approach. This means that we would adjust the plan for the next day on the night before just after we had our nightly meetings. We had to adopt this approach as we would have encounter the different problems as days pass by. In order to prevent such problems from arising and disrupting the flow, we had to prognosticate and adjust from our original plan.

For me, I was part of the team in charge of teaching English. We were supposed to teach English for 2 days and later conduct games and arts & crafts for another 2 days. However from the 'addiction' of teaching English from the first 2 days, my team decided to continue to teach the Vietnamese kids the language. Some might argue that we should try conducting games and arts & crafts in order to gain valuable experiences. BUT I say that I would rather ensure that the language proficiency of the kids be heighten.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
That’s me teaching English. Topic: family =)
The main problem in teaching English was the communication barrier. We overcame this by taking advantage of the translator on the first day. On the consecutive days, we had to literally act out the meaning. I remember making sounds of the different animals and chasing Arshad to illustrate 'the dog is chasing the cat'.

I also enjoyed constructing, or rather improving the physical conditions of the school especially when this was my first time. I was so engrossed in my job that I decided to skip my breaks just to complete my task as quickly as possible. In all, I dug the ground, transported earth, dug for sand, laid bricks, cemented the floor, 'destroyed' beds, scraped the window grills and of course more digging. Haha. The part I enjoyed the most was laying the bricks and digging the ground. It certainly takes a lot of skills and strength. Not as easy as it seems.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
That’s me. Look at my shirt. It suits the whole event! Haha.
I was tired at times but I pushed myself to move on and work harder. This had benefited me in that it has taught me how to persevere and move on even if I'm tired


Talking about shirts, I had purposely worn shirts that are related to the whole trip. Here’s a list of what I wore and the description

Red Cross shirt captioned 'many hands, one world': we must work as one in order to complete our mission
J1 orientation t-shirt captioned 'the journey begins here': everyday is a new day. The journey starts anew
NUS OCIP shirt captioned 'give yourself a...pat in the back': praise yourselves and each other as a form of motivation to continue


After the trip, I was moved to join more overseas community involvement programme trips organise by various organisations. This would mean going to the neighbouring ASEAN countries to contribute to society. I remembered doing a mini CIP when I was in Brunei Darussalam in 2004.

Labels:

「 3:45 AM 」

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home