Hundreds of college students from Taiwan and China yesterday began a volunteer program that is to take them to rural areas in the two nations to teach disadvantaged children over the summer.
About 300 students from National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and 20 Chinese universities, including Peking University and Beijing’s Tsinghua University, are scheduled to teach in 30 rural schools, NTNU said.
The students aim to emulate the spirit of Confucius, who is reputed to have traveled widely and promoted education for all, according to NTNU.
Chiu Yu-tung (邱昱東), a special education major at NTNU who is volunteering his time at Da Jia Junior High School in Taichung, said his goal is to spend time with the children and listen to them.
“I once harbored negative thoughts, because I encountered more difficulty in learning than my peers,” the 18-year-old visually impaired student said. “Luckily, my teachers did not give up on me, they supported me so that I could learn at my own pace and I gradually developed the courage to face my imperfections.”
During his class, students are going to be blindfolded while piecing together puzzles, and they are to try to unravel the meaning of an article with scrambled words to help them develop empathy for visually impaired people and people with learning disabilities, he said.
“I hope to show them that society is diverse and that they shouldn’t measure everyone by the same standards,” Chiu said.
Vincent Chan and Koey Lee, both studying education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said they hope to introduce Hong Kong and Cantonese culture to young people in Taiwan.
The volunteers began their seven-day service in Taiwan yesterday.
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