Gap Year - Bumping through the slums in Bangkok, Thailand * Name: Si Jie Loo My Gap year has been started quite a while and now it is time for some reflection. Taking the gap year at the first place is not an easy decision. Besides the initial objection from the typical Chinese parents, I have also faces doubts that I will be yet delaying another year to start my education in the States. Yet, I somehow know that I have to do this. Nobody else I know from my similar background has been granted permission or bold enough to take up such courage to explore and let life brings me instead of me investigating in depth of every aspect of how my future place, study, potential career will be. So far, the experience has been rewarding and I never regret every minute of this decision. It has opened so many other doors for me and I truly see life in poverty with my own eyes instead of just learning it from the news and text books. How would you voice out your opinion in a debate that Poverty has since decreasing when you have not really see one? How would all of us help global warming when all the poor people in the slums could only afford to buy plastic bags and boxes from the rubbish dump for daily use? For six months, I have been volunteering at the Human Development Foundation (HDF), in Bangkok, Thailand. Since then, I gain more perspective in the way non-government organization runs and the importance of working hand in hand with the poor.
Father Joseph Maier founded HDF, which was once called the Mercy Centre in one of the largest Bangkok Slums- Klong Toey, 40 years ago, where social problems such as drugs, family and sex abuses, AIDS, and poverty are inevitable.
When we may not change the way people think overnight, we still have to take care of the consequences- orphans, infected kids, and street wanderers by providing home and shelter. My biggest contribution to the foundation is perhaps my knowledge from the outside world. Since the kids who live in HDF never really experience something different than their own culture, they love to hear stories of my experience in the United World College. Meeting people from different culture is not surprising for them, they already have a hand full of donors coming in from around the world, but living with them and deal with the differences is quite a challenge. Although they are 300 kids in the foundation ranging from 3 to 18 years old, they have been separated accordingly to age group and gender, thus they are leading a routine life, and everyone somehow has the same pattern of living. To me, the children here have yet to discover themselves.
HDF has a really close relationship with the Red Cross Nordic UWC, where I graduated last May. Every year, one bright student will represent the foundation to take the IB course in Norway. My biggest task after the selection, which is going on this month, is to prepare them for the course, catching up with their English, teaching them how to face the huge leap of life. The selection process has been very exciting. The children here has no idea about the prestigious college, let alone this golden opportunity. It is the HDF staffs who have been monitoring their sponsor kids from young and ‘hunt’ them down when they are eligible. As the kids have gone through many emotional ups and downs, such as deceased parents of AIDs, parents who involved in drug trafficking and ended up in jail, being an obedient child is already a gift for HDF, not to mention one’s willingness to go to school.
I enjoy the process of opening the children’s eyes. This is how I bring my knowledge from my 2 years of IB and UWC experience to good use. I teach English and promote the language as a tool towards better opportunities; I teach the kids African djembe and discovered hidden talents in rhythms from the kids; I help potential scholars to gain self confidence and rational judgments; I draw portraits of the children from the centre and show them what they can do with pencils and paints; I teach them hip hop dance( it is the most popular dance here) among others and show them pictures from college… Even I may not be the one with the highest qualifications, but the kids have already gained from me, because they start from zero.
For me, I have also been learning. I have heard about Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mohammed Yunus’s work in Micro-Credit system in my Economics class, but it is fascinated to see that it has also been set up here in HDF to help the needy and hardworking women; I enjoy the preschool kids embracing the moment of happiness by simply singing the ‘London Bridge’ riddle; I like to watch the boys fight furiously and chuckle together the very next minute; I am impressed with the toughness of the HIV infected children in living Today and enjoy everyday as much as they can; I am touched with the fact that they will always forgive their parents and missed them after all those dreadful encounters they had with them; I learn that managing a donation is much harder than giving a donation. The staffs has to crack their brain to find out who is the most eligible person for the funds and monitor the development of a sponsored kid, school or crisis area over the years; I am working closely with the PR department and perhaps doing an internship in fundraising. There are more things to be mentioned, but I will be here in the heart of Bangkok for another three months, building more Thai vocabulary at the same time friendships and learning the true meaning of helping the poor.
I am sure I will be well prepared to learn and contribute in Dartmouth College after this intense gap year in Thailand because I have an extra year of bumping through the slums that no one else has.
For more refection of my daily work at Mercy Centre, please visit: http://givinglearningdancing.blogspot.com Si Jie is a graduate from Red Cross Nordic United World College (2005-2007) and is attending Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire as an undergraduate. She can be reached via email here.
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