Volunteers proud to help on the front line

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Education makes future

Fu Hsin-ying, 24, interned at Greenpeace, a non-governmental environmental organization from 2017 to 2018.

During her internship, she helped to found a nature reserve area in Yunnan province as well as pushing a canned tuna company to make a promise to help toward sustainable development.

What touches her most is a plastic-reduction campaign she took part in. She noticed the damage of plastic garbage and her action on using less plastic products continues till today.

"The internship lets me know that the voice of action may not be the loudest, but is the most powerful one," she says.

Being an early education teacher for around two years, Fu found her lifelong career goal－to initiate a public welfare program on early childhood education in rural areas in China.

She has done research and read other research that says the intelligence development of children aged up to 3 in rural areas is slower than in cities.

She hopes to help these kids in rural areas with her knowledge and caring. Fu is applying for graduate study on education.

The concept of environment protection is also part of her education."I just set myself as an example, tell the children to explore the environment and nature, and have a sense of belonging so that they will cherish and protect the environment," she says.

For Zhao Yue, 23, a volunteer teacher in a senior high school in Nanjian Yi autonomous county in Yunnan province, the priority is to make sure her students digest the physics courses she teaches.

Zhao is taking a gap year to be a member of the 21st group of volunteer teachers made up by Tsinghua graduates.

The Postgraduates Voluntary Teaching Corps of Tsinghua University was founded in 1998. More than 300 graduates who would later go on to postgraduate programs have served as volunteer teachers with more than 750,000 accumulated hours' service during the past two decades.

Zhao was selected into the group last year with 21 candidates. They took a year of teacher training and practicing before going to the Tibet autonomous region, Yunnan, Qinghai, Shaanxi and Hunan provinces.

During the pandemic, Zhao had to give courses online. Some of her students would miss the course because of a bad internet connection or someone had to take care of a younger brother and sister.

Before the school resumed on April 21, Zhao visited some of her students' homes to better learn about their conditions.

"Most of the students live up in the mountains, only a few of them will get an offer to go to college, but I want to encourage them with my own experience, asking them to hang on," Zhao says.

Her volunteer teacher experience started when she was a freshman student and she led her classmates to help at elementary schools for children of migrant workers in Beijing.

She also took her summer vacation to take care of AIDS orphans as well as protecting the Yangtze finless porpoise.

Zhao is going back to Tsinghua University this September for graduate study, but her volunteering will not stop.

"For us who are born after 1990s, there are countless chances and possibilities, and it's easy to lose focus,"Zhao says."For those who find their purpose and pursue it, they will make it work."

She says she would always practice as her favorite quote from Chinese writer Lu Xun that says: "Give as much light as a slice of heat can produce, like however little light a firefly can make in the dark, do not wait for the torchlight."

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