Action with intention is worthwhile

14 December 2021

I met an inspiring Vietnamese youth this evening JUMP! Workshop on Personal Discovery, Goal Setting and RISE scholarship. She is preparing herself to reach level 3 of the Korean test while she already can speak English well. She is a senior student in Hung Vuong gifted high school, in Pleiku city, Gia Lai. She has good self-awareness and presentation skills. Yet I admire her self-motivation to master the language by self-study, set goals to work in a multinational company, and follow her decision at this young age.

8 students registered for the event after 2 weeks of outreach to a number of friends around my country and Thailand. It is quite a failure but I accept this. Even worse, none of the students responded to my email confirming their participation in the workshop. So I didn't expect much, and my program managed to advise me to still run the event regardless. I know this sort of random recruitment usually has a very low attendance rate. Indeed, only one person showed up but she made my evening.

Our cosy session

With 2 individuals, the space became like coaching and dialoguing time. It was safe, comfortable and intimate. I felt so engaged in the conversation. She shared her thoughts deeply on every single challenge raised in the Identity Card activity. "Our name is special, every time somebody calls my name, I feel its importance" she values her name a lot and equally appreciates other factors that contribute to her identity. She grasped the SMART Goal tool quickly since she applied all questions to her own macro goal. She captured most of the important slides presented and could read out loud pieces of content even when I did not share the screen, which is super impressive. Her autonomy and clear goal probably drove her to participate in the session. The atmosphere is completely different from the one in the afternoon and I am so happy that I made the right decision to still run this event. Reaching out to just one individual counts. It counts. It is the meaning, inspiration and connection born over the experience. While writing the wrapup email to her, I typed "Feel free to keep in touch with me through email/ Whatsapp/Facebook if you like to". It is destiny that we met. But I was conscious enough to think of JUMP! Child Protection Policy so I had to delete that part. HAHA. She carefully listened to my presentation and asked me some interesting questions regarding the RISE scholarship. Feel like she is the representative of Vietnam. I hope the best for her!

I got the pleasure to run a session with students from Indochina Starfish Foundation (ISF) Cambodia earlier in the afternoon. There were around 20 people in the Zoom, of course, another kind of interaction. I was worried at the beginning due to technology and everybody was off-camera. Then I recognized a group of them sitting together in a room, they could not unmute themselves because there would be an echo whenever anyone turned on their mic. I doubted that breakout room could work but gave it a try. It didn't work out, even students in other places could not process my instruction well due to both language barriers and technical problems. Interesting that I was not even frustrated. I just got the instinct that every student was listening to me. I calmed myself down and adjusted my speed to be slower for them to catch up. I think for this group of students, I should have written more instructions on slides. Positively, most students were active in chat to write down answers though going a bit off from the task. In reflection time, I was surprised to hear of their learning points. Some even shared their dream to be an accountant. Some said they know what they want to achieve and just take it slowly and surely. I was even confused how come they could link to that point of learning?! The difficulties were the removal of identity cards that matter to them and sound issues. Technical issues are inevitable in online programs, JUMP! has trained me to be flexible to confront different virtual situations.

ISF & Linh

Another highlight is my pleasure to meet the teacher of the students. Initially, she didn’t speak a word when I tried to connect to her to check her internet and get to know her. I guess she was setting up the technology in her space which I was not aware of. Then during the session, she called her students to come close to her mic to speak and share their thoughts. She summarized and translated my instruction into English and Khmer for the kids. She asked a series of questions to clarify the application process for RISE scholarship. “There is a student absent today because of his schooling, could he attend the upcoming summit?” “of course” She is so caring and supportive of her kids. Without her, I don't know how my session could have turned into. "The students are so excited for today's session." “thank you so much for your support”. I am inspired by her manner and intention as an educator.

#inspiration

#youth

#lifelonglearning