April 2010
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Go Green at City Square Eco-Mall
We had our Post-trip activity on the 6th of March together with students from the Little Green Champions Initiative from Lam Soon Community Centre. The Little Green Champions initiative is a programme established to increase environmental awareness in children and to empower them to champion environmental causes. Together with these children, we had 2 main objectives to fulfill:
Raise...
January 2010
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Visits of Teachers' Houses
The opportunity to visit the teachers’ houses gave us a rough idea of their living conditions as well as their life stories and how they started teaching in the village. Our team was split up into 2 groups, with 1 group visiting the teachers’ houses near where we stayed, and the other group visiting the houses behind the school compound. Both sides had different stories to tell, but...
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Visits of Villagers' Houses
On the evening of our 6th day at the village, our team visited the houses of the four poorest households in Gia Bac. As the houses were quite a distance from the school, we chit-chatted and took many photos along the way. On our way to the houses, we also met a group of children playing and, they even stood in a line and smiled for the camera.
For the average household, their main source of...
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Coffee Harvesting
The day after the wonderful cultural night, the headmaster of Gia Bac school invited us to help him harvest his plot of coffee plants. Now, this is something outside of our usual activities of tree-planting and teaching, and everyone was excited to learn something new as we headed to the school to meet up with the headmaster. We were then led to the plantation site by a teacher. The familiar route...
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Updates!
We’ve just started updating our blog with entries on different activities that we did in Vietnam, do check them out below! More entries will be posted over the next few days as well, so stay tuned!
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Tree-Planting
Tree planting is one of the main objectives of our trip to Vietnam and has been the main motivation throughout this whole project since its conception in June. Our initial idea was for conservation of the environment, which we did fulfill as we cleared the weeds that overcrowded the state land, and replaced them with saplings. Later on we learnt that to meet the needs of the environment and also...
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Cultural Night
The unforgettable cultural night cum campfire was the result of cohesive efforts put together by the school, the Vietnamese volunteers, and us. In order to prepare for the big day, the staff actually requested each student attending the cultural night cum campfire to bring in a couple of firewood to start the magnificent fire that we witnessed and keep it burning through the chilly night.
When...
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Forest Adventure
We woke up early at 4.30 a.m. and everyone was really looking forward to the forest adventure (without knowing what was expecting us). Along the long route there, everyone was happily walking, talking, enjoying the scenery (see photo below) and taking photos.
At the foot of a hill, the ranger suggested for us to take a “short”-cut, which was a walk up the steep hill (see above...
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Dinner with the VIPs
On the second Tuesday of our stay in Gia Bac, three of us represented IS to a dinner with the local officials from Di Linh town.
The dinner was nothing short of extravagant – it was a spread, and Vietnamese wine was in abundance.
After setting the table together with the hosts (the Headmaster and teachers), we sat down for dinner and exchange of sentiments about the Project thus far. I...
December 2009
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We're back!
To borrow words from some of our team members, this was a memorable, fulfilling, unforgettable, and AWESOME trip. It was 14 well-spent days with one amazing team. And I’m proud to say that we’ve achieved our 3 team goals and so much more.
This trip wouldn’t have been such a success without each and every one of our team member’s input, and it was heartening to see...
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Finally...
Our team will be setting off later today to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and we’ll spend the rest of the day travelling to the village, Gia Bac, which is our residence and work area for the next 2 weeks.
For most of us, this will be our first time getting engaged in overseas community service and, needless to say, YEP. It is with both anticipation and a slight fear of the unknown that hangs...
November 2009
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Updates!
First off, great news! Our application for YEP funding has been approved. Henceforth, our project is now supported by Singapore Totalisator Board and National Youth Council.
And, it’s only less than one month to our trip. This semester has most definitely flew by, and the two groups in charge of the planning of lessons and night activities had been hard at work to complete most of the...
October 2009
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Weeding Sessions with NParks
On the 3rd and 10th of October, which were two cloudy Saturdays, we had to get up early to be at the MacRitchie reservoir for our weeding sessions with NParks. This was our pre-trip preparation to let us gain a little experience so as to be more prepared for the actual tree-planting activities during the trip.
Despite the sombre skies on both days, we were very happy and excited when we could...
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September 2009
3 posts
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August 2009
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IS Team Bonding Day
On the 5th of August 2009, our team met at the rooftop at Vivo City for our first ever session. Although we’d to meet quite early in the day, no one was late! The day first started off with ice-breakers, followed by a briefing by our team leader about the plans ahead, before some team-bonding games and a mass takeaway lunch (makeshift alfresco dining!) to end the session off
First up,...
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About Project O2
Project O2, a Youth Expedition Project, is organised by a team of undergraduates from the International Service division of the Rotaract Club of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
Our team will be heading to Gia Bac Village (close to Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, for a 2-week community service trip in December 2009, with environmental conservation and education as our main areas of...