Orphanage Visit

Happy Lunar New Year Everyone! I wish you, your family, and your friends a happy, healthy, lucky, and successful year to come. 

So before Lunar New Year, our 21st Century Class organized a little trip to the orphanages and families with difficult conditions. Using the money that we've collected through donation events we've created in the last 2 months, we were able to buy lots of food, drinks, cooking ingredients, and toys to give to the less fortunate.

The trip lasted half a day, with us traveled in one bus and the gifts in the other. We stopped at 2 orphanages and gave the gifts to the children and their supervisors. We heard a lot of stories about why people started the orphanage, how many children are there, what are their routines... We even got to have a look around the orphanages and see the conditions that the children were living in. I got to say, the place was "ok". It's decent enough to live in, but it's not as fancy, colorful, or comfortable as houses in cities. This kind of make me feel sad because I lived in a great house and I've never really cherished it. But it also makes me feel good to know that we've came here to support these children's lives by giving them gifts so they'll have a happy Lunar New Year.

This isn't the orphanage we visited but it was kind of like this.

We also stopped at about 6 or 7 houses with difficult conditions. Do you know those images of poor people that usually show up on TV or inspirational videos? Well that's kind of what we saw. We visited this one woman who was 98 and was living in this tiny "apartment" in a small and narrow alleyway. Why did I put brackets around the word "apartment"? Because it's more like a tiny room (about 4 meters wide, 5 meters long, and5 meters high) with a part of the wall sticking out like bunk beds. The woman was unable to get up because she was paralyzed from the waist down (like Professor X) and she depends on her neighbors to live. We talked to her for a little bit and gave her our gifts. It's not much but I think it will help her a lot throughtout the Lunar New Year. We also visited another old woman who lived in a house made out of dry leaves and logs. Behind her house are piles of trash and wild plants. She also seems to live on her own. We also talked for a little bit and gave her our gifts. She seemed to appreciated it a lot, which made me feel good to know that we've help someone.

This isn't the woman's house but it was kind of like this.

New Year is a time when you be with your family, enjoy the happiness of a new beginning and the warmness of spring. But for the less fortunate, it's a difficult time because they might not be able to enjoy this wonderful once-a-year moment. Therefore, I think it's our duty to give back to these people, to help them with their struggle, to give them a hand so that they can also feel the joyness of New Year.