Green Summer Campaign

                                    
                    My life was changed after the "Green Summer Campaign". "Green summer campaign" is  a community service program which gives college students the opportunity to do community service in rural areas such as villages, mountains and the country side. Every summer the program focuses on a different rural area. Living conditions in these areas are very poor. There are also many different ethnic minorities who are backward and lagging behind.
                 

                    I thought it was a very good program. I wanted to come there and help them, also I could learn some new things. My friends and I volunteered to go to the country side. Twenty people lived together in a small house. It was hard but I had a lot of experiences.
                      We had  many group activities to do. In the morning, my friends and I went to the rice field to help them harvest. At night time, I taught the farm children who came bare foot to school. They didn't have much time to go to school because most of the time they had to help their parents.

               

 

                      One day, my team went to village to help them to build a house which was  made of wood and coconut leaves. It was a popular house in the countryside. It would cost a lot of money if you hired someone to help you in my country. We helped them to carry wood, clean and prepare coconut leaves for them put on the proof of the house. It was hard for  me because I hadn't done a hard job like that before. While we were cleaning all the dirt collapsed from the old house, some of my friends stepped on nails or fell on the ground. It was dangerous but we weren't afraid of that.

The next day, our team had a new mission. It was more harder than everything we had done before. We went to clean the drains. All of us had to soak in a dirty water for 2 hours to lean the trash and cut all the grass. After that, we moved onto another job, we tried to clean a small river with full of water hyacinth.

                      It wasn't easy for us who were used to living in the city and just went to school.We didn't know each other before we volunteered to the campaign. But after two weeks ,we were getting closer. We were changed after we came to the farm, after we saw how hard the people there had to work to support their family.

                      Thanks to "Green summer" campaign I learned to be stronger. It was a very good experience.  I learned many lessons from there, I was changed after I went back. I stepped back and reflected on my life; I stopped chasing for materials which didn't make me as happy as I thought. I appreciated what things I didn't have and those I have.  I was glad because after two weeks, most of the farm children whom I taught knew how to read their name and some basic words. I felt proud of myself because I had dedicated my efforts to help the kids who were very innocent and virtuous. I was proud I became a solider of the "Green summer " campaign.