Please meet Chinh, she teaches at "Dorothea's Project Legacy" My dear departed wife legacy goes on for generations to come. Project Legacy allows kids from poor families to get the much needed tutoring as well as a place to "hang out". If so led please write a note of encouragement to Chinh, I will forward it to Chinh as well as our team.
Teachers of a teacher
"When I wrote this journal, I was sitting alone in my room, reminiscing on the things that I have been through for the last five months at Giving it Back to kids. How time flies!
I would never forget the day I took over the English teacher position at the Community Center. I do not know how to explain the feelings I had at that time: happy, excited but a little bit confused and insecure as well. I know that if I am a teacher at the center I will not only be a teacher, but also a friend of all the children studying and living here, which is indeed very difficult. You cannot be trained to be a friend! And my students are both the children living in Carmela's Home and children whose poor parents live in the neighborhood.
However, my anxiety turned out to be useless when my students greeted me for the first time. Their smiles reflected the kindness and positivity from their hearts, which absolutely moved me and swept all my worries away.
I could not tell you the hardships and challenges that they have been facing with just a few words, but there is one thing that I know for sure: My students are my motivation. I teach them English and they, in turn, teach me meaningful life lessons.
One of my "teachers" is a twelve-year-old boy named Nam who greatly changed the way I look at this world. Because his parents have to go out at night to work (his dad is a taxi driver and his mom sells drinks along the beach), he has to shoulder everything at home. This includes babysitting his eighteen month old sister and taking care of his other sister in the third grade. He rarely has time to study at night so his only choice is to wake up at 4 or 5 a.m to do his homework and prepare for the coming classes. Also, one of my students told me that she saw Nam sitting alone in the corner of the music room to study while all of his friends were playing happily. But the thing that makes me impressed with him the most is that I have never ever heard a single complaint from him, even when I asked him whether he felt tired or not. I strongly believe that with his sense of hard work and his positive attitude, he will be successful in the future!
There are many other moving stories about the children in the community. One boy in his last year of high school was willing to study at the table for more than six hours just to finish his homework because his dream is to become an architect. Another girl insisted on studying to prepare for her final exam, even though she would not be able take it, since her mother did not have money to pay for her tuition fee at school. (robert's note, gibtk will do what we can to make her dream come to pass!) She would not be given permission to attend the exam, but she still did her best.
There are many other students that I cannot tell you about in this journal who are everyday sailing their ships through the dangerous stormy ocean to the land of knowledge and happiness. I am proud to be their captain and Giving it Back to Kids and its donors are the precious lighthouses that shine and guide them in this journey. As a teacher, I believe that education is for everyone but for some reason, poor students in Vietnam are facing many kinds of difficulties just because their parents could not afford to send them to tutoring classes after school.
Therefore, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you for everyone who helps and supports me and my strong students.
This time is the hottest time in Vietnam, but the atmosphere in English class at the Community Center is much hotter as the University entrance exam is coming and each of us are doing our best. Or I can say that: WE ARE ON FIRE!"
Sincerely; Chinh
www.gibtk.org
Robert Kalatschan
Giving It Back To Kids
