Before the voluntary trip abroad, I was bombarded with questions such as... ...
'What? You're heading to the borders of Thai and Myanmar for volunteering? You're not serious, aren't ya?"
"How are you travelling there?"
"How do you know it will be safe?"
Even better, questions like,
"You're just back to Malaysia for summer holidays and you're leaving the country again?!"
Ah I am indeed blessed to having loving people around me :)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Firstly, before I share my exciting yet valuable experiences with you,
here's a short intro for the questions above...
Love Without A Border, is the group I joined for this volunteering trip.
Our founder, Mr Chong whom is a compassionate and caring man organised volunteering trips every month to different hill tribe villages in need of help.
He has successfully built up networks with the Karen people, living on the borders of Thailand and Myanmar. Hence, volunteers from all the countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, etc joined him and follow his led to the quest of volunteering @ the Borders of Thai and Myanmar.
One of the biggest rewards after joining this trip?
I learnt loads of life wisdoms and stories from him! :P
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Who are the Karen people you might ask?
The Karen people are an ethnic group living in South-East Asia. The Karen people are culturally and linguistically diverse. While most Karen people are Skaw Karen, there are other Karen cultural and language groups such as Pwo Karen and Bwe Karen.
There are about seven million Karen people living in Burma (Myanmar), about half a million Thai-Karen whose ancestral villages are in Thailand, and smaller groups of Karen living in India and other South-East Asian countries. There are about 140,000 Karen refugees living in camps in Thailand, and about 50,000 Karen refugees have been resettled in America, Canada, Australia, and some European countries.
Most Karen people are subsistence farmers, living in small mountain villages, and growing rice and vegetables and raising animals.
- Karen People of Burma (Adapted from: http://www.karen.org.au/karen_people.htm)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And our journey begins...
Before we embark our long journey from Chiangmai to the borders of Myanmar,
each of us brought supplies with us all the way from Singapore, big bags of second hand clothes, stationeries, donations for food and water tower etc..
All of my mates were great, compassion people with big hearts!
They too have their own professions, their own life challenges to dealt with,
however, each of them, with their spirit of giving back to the community has truly inspired me to become a work profession like them in the near future!
("I wanna be like you when I grow up!" haha lol how young are you anyway?!)
These great people are:
(Forgive me if I spelled your name wrongly ><)
Ke Xin, Xiao Jie, Adelene, Alice, Yee Ling, David, Kenny, Yen Siang, Ray, Zu Han, Ling Jing, Hui Juan, Ming Hui, Xiu Lei, Dao Yi, Sing Yee, Xiao Feng, Hui Fang.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
First day arrival at Chiangmai, Thailand. Beautiful town, easy going, friendly people!
Sawadee-chao!
As soon as we settled down in our guesthouse,
each of us has our own plans to carry out...
For me, a big thank you for my donors, we have raised RM 1000 to buy food supplies for the tribe village! (Applause!)
Mr Chong brought us to Makro to get the food supplies, hmm.. which was very familiar to us Johoreans! Somehow disappeared from our town... xD
Packs of packs of rice noodles we loaded into the trolley...
"Hold up! Push another trolley here!"
"I found more rice noodles here in this section!"
(Asking the staff) "We still need more rice noodles, where can we find more?"
"How many rice noodles we have now?"
"Okay, I'm counting! 2,4,6,8,10...20...30...."
Never have I bought so much rice noodles in my LIFE!
SUCCESS!
However, we couldn't have done it if we didn't receive the generosity from donors,
a huge thanks to...
| Mr. Jimmy Soong |
| Mr. Kee |
| Ms. Valen |
| Ms. Regine |
| Ms. Amelia |
| Ms. Jojo |
| Mr. Alvin |
| Ms. Koh |
| Mr. Scott |
| Mr. Tommy |
| Ms. Eveline Eng |
| Ms. Amanda |
| Mr. YM Tan |
| Mr. Wei Han |
| Mr. Tong |
| Mr. Liew |
| Mr. Don Goh |
| Mr. Choo YS |
| Ms. Rou Tze |
| Ms. Meg Ong |
Thank you! :)
Now that we have all our things ready,
luggage, food supplies, camping materials,
we're ready for our next day early 8 am drive to Thai border...
To be continued...
P/S
If you're interested in joining the volunteering activities with Love Without A Border, feel free to contact our group link as posted above or drop me a message below! :)
I have fellow friends online who have been starting to ask me how to join and all, which is a great start!
And that is why, I am sharing my adventures here, with you,
to inspire more people like you and me to spread the love!*
No comments:
Post a Comment