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Todays note is written by Tam our SE Asia director and Talented team member Chinh. As always if led to send a word of encouragement please do. I'll be sure the team sees it!
Enjoy!
Just a desire of helping more people in Hiep Duc district, Quang Nam province where our Legacy 3 is located took us to a place where there is Ca Doong and M'Nong tribes living. Just only 25 km far from our Legacy 3 but it took us an hour to get there through a slippery muddy road along the mountain. It was scary sometimes but thinking that 100 families there will be able to access clean water helped us be strong. It was so nice to see children showing up at the distribution with curiosity on the visitors and the filters given to them.
When we did the demonstration on how to use the filters, people could not believe that they could drink the water right after being filtered. People in this area boil water to drink every day. So, they did not believe that they could drink it without boiling. They asked our team mate to drink it again and again to make them believe in the safety of it. Their eyes were wide-opened to see To had it twice and clapped their hands. Their suspect has gone away. They recognized that their families would be free from sickness caused by unclean water and they would save time from boiling it too. Then, they started to focus on the demonstration. How nice to see happy faces on -parents and children when they know that clean water will help improve their families' health, especially the next generation.
In the afternoon of same day, we distributed 50 bikes to 50 kids who live in Hiep Duc district too. These kids come from poor or near poor families. The distribution was organized at our Legacy 3. Talking to several kids, I got the same answer that it was the first time they own a bike. They all were excited that they could go to school and get back in time and on their own. This will be the first time in their life that they don't have to depend on someone for a ride. How nice?!
Le Bao Ngoc shared: "My mom gives me a ride to school when no one hires her to work. When she has work, I either walk school and walk back or ask for a ride from friends. It takes me 2 hours to walk home from school. In my grade 6 and grade 7, walking to school or walking back home happens regularly because my mom is hired to work in the mountainous area. My dad works far away from home and he just comes home during Tet time. I am the oldest child among three sisters, so I like to be home faster to help with house chores. And when I depend on others to get a ride to school, I am always worried about missing school. I dreamed of having a bike but now it comes true. I am so happy with this new bike."
Or another story of Nguyen Ngoc Han: For many people, a bike is just a bike, a means of transportation, but for little Han, a bike is her big dream, the dream that she cannot reach to from her background. Han has been raised by her seventy-three-year-old grandmother as her father refused her and her mother got married and moved out long time ago. Han's grandmother cried sharing with GIBTK's staff: "I know that she has always wanted a bike because she has to walk a long way to school, usually an hour. It is tiring for a child to walk that far, but I cannot buy one for her. I am old and weak so the only thing I can do is trying my best to provide her with simple food.
It is heart-breaking for me that she does not even dare to ask me to buy one, because she knows how hard our lives are." We noticed the way Han looks at the bikes and the way she touches them, which clearly shows her happiness. Through our talk with Han while preparing the bikes for distribution, we discovered that having no bike makes her feel self-pity, as all of her friends, who have parents, go to school by bike or have their parents drive them to, while Han has to walk. "I am sad because I feel like I am left behind by my friends and abandoned by my parents." Speechless, our heart sinks knowing how hard this little girl is going through. With the bike we give to her, we hope that it will not only help her feel less tired going to school but also warms her heart a little bit because she knows that there are still many people out here ready to help her. For many of us, a bike is just a bike, but let's make it far more meaningful than that by giving it to disadvantaged children.
Robert Kalatschan
robert@gibtk.org
www.givingitbacktokids.org
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