EDEN's Ideal:“We are brothers without the same flesh and blood. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach a man how to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”
EDEN's Mission: Serving the Weak to Witness Christ, Promoting Gospel and Welfare to Bring People to God.
EDEN Vision: Wherever there is a need, there is an answer from Eden.
This summer Eden social Welfare hosted another summer Camp at a junior school from July 30th to August 5th. (Address of the school: 臺南縣鹽水鎮南港里202號) The school is small and is located 30 minutes away from Tainan city. Most of our volunteers are not use to the school’s country geography. There was a big despair when it was announced that the closest 7/11 (convenient store) is 10 minutes away. Nevertheless, the principle made sure our staff and volunteers are comfortable. On the first day, the principle presented us (Eden staff and volunteers) with gifts. These gifts turn out to be cups that are used during the week. Furthermore, the principle made sure we stay hydrated by providing us soft drinks throughout the summer camp.
Duya receiving a gift from the school's principle
Our gift and soft drinks
Why did we host this summer camp?
Majority of these students come from underprivileged backgrounds. Most of these students do not have the resources to explore beyond their local area. As a result, students who want to explore the world are unable to do so. A student from the school told us “I’ve wanted to go to junior high school ever since I was in grade 4. This way I will meet new people and see new things.” (Their Junior high school is at another part of town.) With this in mind, Eden Social Welfare designed a summer camp for these students. The main objective of the summer camp is to provide students with new perspectives on the world. To do so, we decided to recruit volunteers who are proficient in the English language and volunteers from different outskirts of the world; hence the origin of the summer camp’s theme Multiculturalism. Every day we have English lessons, dance routines, introduction to different countries and bite sized snacks from different countries.
Group Picture with School Staff Members
Alex's take on Italian Pasta
Nancey's take on
Egyptian rice pudding
Erica's take on
American burgers
Duya's take on
Mongolian appetizers
Shine teaching
volunteers the dance routine
Duya and Erica putting their
food on display
Our volunteers learning the dance
Vance, Shine and Sam
teaching students the dance routine
General Reflection from our Staff members and Volunteers
Tainan’s Multicultural summer camp required our staff and volunteers to live at the school for a week. For many volunteers it was a challenge being away from home. Most of our volunteers took a four hour train ride to get to the school. Furthermore, the majority of our volunteers did not know each other before the camp. The whole group (Eden staff members and Volunteers) gathered for the first time on the Friday (August 29, 2011). This meant we only had two days to get accustomed to each other and finish making all our teaching materials, before the camp starts on the Monday (August 1, 2011). The stakes was increased as the announcement was made that the closest 7/11(convenient store) is 10 minutes away, by car; If one was to go there on foot it will be around an hour back and forth. In short, the odds were stacked against us.
Mira, Jaywel, and May preparing
for their English lessons
Mira, Jaywel, Dona preparing
for their english lessons
Sam, Duya, Ola and Shine
making good covers
Vance making name tags
for students and volunteers
Despite this, Eden Social Welfare can say, with the utter most confidence, that all our volunteers had a great experience. Most of our volunteers are city dwellers. Thus, the country landscape and life style is foreign to them. For example, one night our volunteers decided to sleep on the school’s basketball court. Though it was summer, the breeze cool the court down and made everybody on the court feel at ease. The sky was clear enough to go stargazing. For some reason the mosquitoes did not show up that night and neither did the hurricane that was suppose to make a guest appearance. Needless to say our ‘city dwellers’ were thoroughly enjoying themselves. Sadly, good times do not last long. The stadium lights opened at 4:30am for local folks. Our volunteers were startled by the lights and were even more startled when people started to show up at the school’s premises. What do local folks do at 4:30am in the morning? If you guessed ‘morning exercise’ reward yourself with something nice. That is right, at 4:30am local people shows up at the school to get their daily exercise. You can imagine how startled they were when they saw our volunteers on the court. A woman stopped for a good minute when she saw our volunteers on the court. But that did not stop her from her morning exercise. Out volunteers were embarrassed as more people showed up. As one of our volunteers described, “As of right now this is the most awkward moment of my life. I have never slept under a spotlight. I feel like I’m on display. But I’ll remember this night forever.”
School's basketball court
Nancy playing small forward
Jaywell playing center
Erica playing point guard
Eden's basketball team
In this Camp we had the opportunity to learn sign language. Duya, from Mongolia, was kind enough to teach us some basic sign language for everyday use. Some of our volunteers, and students alike, were quite surprised to learn that sign language is not unified. There are many different sign languages out there. Duya taught American Sign Language, during Duya's Mongolian cultural teaching section.
Duya teaching our volunteers
American sign language
Our volunteers learning
"how are you?"
Vicky translating
for Duya; from
American sign language
to Mandarin
Duya teaching students sign language
There were many special moments throughout the camp. Every night our volunteers will get together and enjoy each other’s fellowship. We played many games together but our favourite one is called ‘AHHHHH SHOCK!’ How did this game come about? One night we had lots of leftovers from dinner. Sam, our volunteer, suggested that the best way to get rid of the food is to play a game called ‘AHHH SHOCK!’ Long story short the losers must finish the leftovers. Our volunteers are very competitive and will not let up. We battled for an hour before the leftovers was swiped cleaned.
Our dinner prior to the game
Playing AHHHHH Shock!
Epic battle
Losers finish leftovers
Conclusion
There are those that ask if there is lots of work involved when setting up this camp? The answer is yes, there is LOTS that needs to be done when hosting these types of camp. Our volunteers are very tired by the end of the day. Our volunteers become visibly exhausted as the end of the camp approached. However, unforgettable memories were created between staff members (Both Eden and the school), volunteers, and students. Jaywel, one of our volunteer, told us that she was heartbroken when one of her students asked her if she can stay just a bit longer. In the end everyone try their best to cling onto one other. Students asked volunteers to give them piggy back rides and their contact information. A lot of group pictures were taken at the time of departure. Volunteers tired their best to get their last few shots of the school, and with the students, before they absolutely had to leave. On the way home, our volunteers questioned if one week was enough to make a substantial difference in the lives of their students. To speak blatantly, we do not know if the students taken something valuable away from this event. However, we can state, with certainty, that our volunteers has taken something precious away from this camp. Alex, our volunteer, said the following. “I’ll never look at a basketball court the same. There are so many blissful memories underneath the net and I can’t help but be reminded of my time here (the school). I really will miss this place.”
Below contains the pictures of our volunteers.Please take a look.
Introducing our volunteers for Tainan’s Multicultural Camp
