Learning does not end with the completion of our trip to Vietnam.
In fact true learning has just began now that we have time to think over what we have seen, learnt and experienced.
Choose one of the following questions to reflect on.You may choose to post your comments here or if you have good pictures, you may send your reflection and pictures to the following address :frances_ess@moe.edu.sg
The questions may take a little longer to answer but we assure you it will be very
great learning experiences.
We intend to publish a book on this GP Programme and so your reflections might be selected. Please include your name and class.
The War Remnants Museum
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The Japanese do not teach about the Japanese Occupation in their schools. When they visit the Changi War Museum, some of them will be affected. The War Remnants Museum was previously known as the Museum of American War Crimes.
- Do you think that this museum serve a purpose?
- If so what is the purpose?
- Do you think it is effective?
- With liberalization in Vietnam and the normalization of relations with the United States, should this museum be closed down?
- If not why?
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
The aim of the orphanage is to provide the children with a safe and caring environment which lessens their misfortune and gives their lives greater purpose and meaning.
Being a private organization, the orphanage is facing many problems in trying to provide the children with food, shelter, health and education. The nuns and volunteers at the orphanage have devoted their lives for the wonderful mission - helping the orphans. Yet they have limited human and financial resources.
- Did we do the right thing in collecting toys, clothes and food for the children?
- What was the short term and long term impact of our gift package?
- What else could we have done given our limited time, money and resources?
Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities,Faculty of Oriental Studies.
The students from the Faculty of Oriental Studies made a great effort to established a good relationship with our school.
1. Do you think it is important to established such ties?
2. If they were to visit our school, what kind of programmes would you have planned for them?
3.How can we continue to maintain a good relationship with Vietnam?Impact of Agent Orange
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Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, an estimated 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were deployed in South Vietnam. Over 3 million people have been affected by Agent Orange like the increased risk of various types of cancer and genetic defects.
1. Do you think it was right of the United State to use Agent Orange?
2. What kind of help should the United State offer for the suffering that they have caused to Vietnam?
3. Should the sons of America pay for the sin of the fathers?
4.Should the Agent Orange victims remain a dignified silence or speak up?
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6 comments:
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
We were collecting toys, clothes and food for the children in the orphanage. Yes, that was our way as visitors to help them see that we care for them, that they have somebody who is concerned about them.
I believe we did the right thing as it is better to do something than nothing, even if it is misinterpreted as looking down on them, which could possibly happen. Our first intention was to make them feel good about themselves that although they have no parents, they could still be showered with the love of strangers, like us. However, sometimes what we actually mean could be mistaken. As we paid a visit to their 'home', I noticed some jealousy within them. Some were envious of our well-being and affordability to give them such relief.
In my opinion, what we gave must have some short and long term impacts. The short term impact might be that the children felt a sense of thankfulness and joy at that moment. It is not actually the materials that we donated to them that made them feel so, it is the way we presented them. The passion we showed brought them to realize they are well-taken care of not only by the nuns and volunteers at the orphanage but also by the outsiders. This was shown by the smiles and 'cám ơn' they uttered gratefully while we were giving out the gifts.
Nevertheless, some children who are older and, I suppose, have tasted the spice of life, might feel uneasy. This might be due to the background they were from, no parents to cater for them and thus they become defensive about people wanting to aid them.
In long term, the impacts could be that they have seen too many organizations and groups coming over to provide them with these things that they no longer appreciate what is given to them and begin to take them for granted. Besides, the love that was bestowed to them is only up to as long as the gift package is still present and not completely consumed or worn out. Afterwards, they would only know how to receive from others instead of giving, not necessarily in material forms, to others.
Given our limited time, money and resources, it is difficult to do something meaningful to them in the long run. We could have bought them some simple English books to learn and found some volunteers who speak Vietnamese and fair English to teach them.
We could have as well promoted the awareness of the community and our country that there are ample of unfortunates out there who need helping hands. This might be done through small campaigns or as simple as putting up blogs like what we actually are doing right now.
To conclude, I do learn some things through this trip which are hard to reveal in words but I believe as time goes by, these are yet to be uncovered through a number of reflections and realizations that there are a lot to learn in simple things in life.
by Tania Setiawati
4A / 20
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
1. yes, i think that we really did the right thing, collecting all those toys and gift for them.It is our way of showing that we the public can also help. I think that its also good that they know that there is someone out there who is also concern about them as tania said. It was really heart warming to see the children's smiling faces when we gave the presents to them. I think that if we could, we should also play our part in making them happy.
2.I think that the short term impact of the gifts that we gave them are probably that it cannot probably last for a lifetime. The things that we give, i could say that it would only last for awhile.
While the long term impact of our gifts, is probably the happiness of the children's when they received the gifts that we collected for them and hence also telling them that there are someone out there who cares.
3.In my opinion, i think that given the limited time and resources that we have, we couldn't really do much for the children at the orphanage.Although it would not be much, i think that we should have brought some books for them like tania said so as to give them a simple education and to let them know about some simple short stories.
I learnt a lot from this learning trip, especially from the trip to the orphanage, that we SHOULD REALLY be greatful to what we have now and we shouldn't ask for more because there are others who are much, MUCH more unfortunate then us.I hope that by looking at this blog, more people will know that they are really very lucky to grow up with what they have when others don't have it.
Amanda Ong(18)
4Endeavour
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
1. Yes, I believed we did the right thing to collect food, toys and clothes for the children. I think that the children there rarely have visitors to visit them, to give them things, and play for that little while when they are there. It was nice to see some of the children really happy when we arrived and gave them little packets of sweets and biscuits.
But however, some of those children who are older might have thought that we were looking down at them because of their background, and I could sense a tinge of jealousy in them, and they would purposely do things to spite us, like for example, throw the packet of sweets or biscuits on the floor right in front of your face.
2. In my opinion, the short term impact of our gifts is that, it's just a temporary happiness given to them, and this happiness cannot last long. The long term impacts of our gifts is that, they at least know that there are people out there who cares for them, and they will appreciate the things given to them. Nevertheless, because there at many organisations and charities that gives things to them, they take the things for granted, and they would not learn how to receive things from others, but not learn how to give.
We could have taught them how to play simple traditional games like how we do in Singapore, and also maybe help them clean up certain parts of the orphanage, which was rather dirty at certain parts.
I have learnt a lot from this trip to the temple orphanage, and we are certainly a lot more fortunate than them, compared in terms of standard of living, quality of life, and of course our background. We are very lucky to have all the luxurious things that they don't have, and we must learn to appreciate things well.
Name: chua mei yan (05)
class 4formidable
I think that we are doing the right thing for the children in the orphanage. It is because we could not be able to help much as we are from other country. We should help them not because of our care value but is to help fellow human beings from all over the country.Moreover they are quite pity.As they do not have parents beside them just like us.Although We could not help much the most we can help the orphans is by giving them our limited resources such as food and toys.
The short term impact of our gift are the children will feel happy for the time being. Actually it not the gift we make them happy, it is us who make them happy. They need most is love from outside word and caring from the people outside. Although they are orphans they do have feelings.Even though they donot have parents they are still human beings, they are not wanted by their parents maybe for alot of reason but the main thing is the parents will also still love them although they are far away.
We could be able to do more interaction, letting time know more about Singapore, as they are orphans they might not be lucky like us to have such a memoriable memories of childhood and might not even be able to travel like us. Singaporeans are counted lucky yet they do not know about it.They might not even notice about the poorer country and about their orphans and the mistake once a person did.
Goh Xin Yi Janice(5)
4A
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
Collecting these items for the children in the orphanage is one of our purpose to visit Vietnam. By doing so, not only did we fulfil our purposes but also shared our concern and love to children there. Besides, having to take the efforts of all students and teachers to collect the items from people, check in the items and carry it to the orphanage personally is not an easy task. I read the brochure of the orphanage and I discovered that although the nuns had devoted their lives to help the orphans by providing them with sufficient food, shelter, health and education and even daily timetables to balance their lifestyle, they are still having limited human and financial resources and also seeking for volunteers to contribute their help and resources to the orphanage. Therefore, I think that by collecting toys, clothes and food for the children is the right thing we did, giving the orphanage more aids in providing the children for a better life and facilities.
Moreover, there will be short term and long term impact of our gift package.
The short term impact might be that the gift package we had packed can only last the orphanage a short period of time for the large amount of children to consume. Having to visit the children personally together as a group, I can see that the expressions and actions made by the children tell us that they are eager to get the food we had brought for them. The children are running towards us when they saw us, reaching out their hands wanting to get the food packets on our hands even though we had not settled down. We distributed the candies, sweets, biscuits and bookmarks to them. One example makes me think that giving gift package to them gives short term impact. A small little girl dropped her jelly onto the ground and yet, picked it up quickly. Without washing or cleaning the jelly, she popped the jelly into her mouth immediately without having the time for us to stop her from doing so. This depicts to us that although many different volunteers often bring gift package to them, they are still hungry for food and that there is forever shortage of food in the orphanage to feed the children.
The long term impact is that the orphanage will become even more dependent on outsiders to bring in the gift packages to them. Eventually, they may treat the gift package for granted and have a thinking in their mind that even though the orphanage have shortage of supplies, outsiders from all over the world will still come to their rescue no matter what. As a group, the children said thank you in Vietnamese and put on the smiles to make us feel that they appreciated our help. We felt their thanks true from their heart. However, another example that I had seen in the orphanage had shown us that the long term impact had started to take place already. As usual on the second day, we visited the orphanage again. I could not believe what I had seen in my own eyes. A young girl took the gummies we gave, threw it onto the ground, step it with her feet, looked up and smiled at us even though we were looking at her twice.
In conclusion, happiness given by an outsider is always a temporary one. Thus, given our limited time, money and resources, I think we should leave the children a memorable memory in their minds by interacting with them with some exciting games. Like what Tania had said, buying them some simple English books to learn and find some volunteers who speak Vietnamese and fair English to teach them would be a more sustainable way in contributing and improve their English literacy rate.
Carlene Yeo
4 Endeavour
The Dieu Giac Temple Orphanage
Did we do the right thing in collecting toys, clothes and food for the children?
Yes, I think we did the right thing in collecting toys, clothes and food for the children. The orphanage is in need of these. Food is essentially for survival. It is how we show concern and care for the children. We are helping them cope with the financial limitations the orphanage has. However, these actions are sometimes misinterpreted. Some people donate what they do not want for example, expired can food, torn old clothings and spoiled toys. I was in a program ran by Salvation Army for several years. I have helped in many fund raising activities. I have helped in packing donations such as old clothes and books. Some people donate clothes that are torn. I have even received expired can foods. Donating what you do not want is not charity.
What was the short term and long term impact of our gift package?
I think the short term impact of our gift packages would be able to cheer the kids up. The children would be elated and they would have new clothes, books and toys. We would be able to help them cope with the insufficient supply of food.
The long term impact would be negative. How long can this gift packages last? 1 month or 1.5 months? Are we going to continue to donate gift packages? How regular can we donate it? Food prices are increasing. Some people like us even have difficulties coping with this increase in food prices. When we as donors have difficulties in coping with the increase in food prices, do you think we would still donate? Well, it may not affect everyone but some rich people may not believe in donating. I suggest that the orphanage can appeal to the Vietnamese government for help. After all, government helps their own people, don't they?
What else could we have done given our limited time, money and resources?
Indeed, what we have done is not enough. Instead of donating, we could actually have interacted more with the children. It is to let them know that they are not alone out there in this world, that people care for them. This is the least we can do for them.
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