By Violet | High School Senior-Summer Volunteer 2017
During the summer of 2017 I volunteered in Vietnam for Rock-Paper-Scissors teaching art, these are some of my thoughts about the program that I had written up while I was there.
I found out about this program through my school and from knowing Sara, Sophie, and Phoebe since I was very young. They are a truly compassionate and inspiring family, who has created this beautiful community for the kids of Cam Duc, Vietnam. I am an art teacher with this program, although every volunteer contributes to everything we do here, including bike givings and bike repair, art and music and yoga lessons and camps, and glasses givings to older women and men.
This program provides children with hope towards a positive future that they may not have previously imagined and with the means to express and manifest these aspirations through the arts. Teaching visual arts and violin and cello, we help children to see the many ways to think and express themselves, and of the importance of these intertwined skills. The value of where art can take one’s mind in the moment through raw expression and emotion, and where it can bring people to future success is infinite. In the practice of making art (through sound or sight), skills and intelligences are built which may be applied to every way of life. Art can express the endless bends in life, with abstract excitement balanced with control and purposefulness. This gives children confidence, found joy, and a skillset which may help them move on to another level of education, or simply to be successful in their everyday lives.
By being in Vietnam and volunteering here, the program has brought me a deeper understanding of myself, of happiness, and of communication with those from another culture. It has specifically brought me awareness of a place so far away from my regular life, teaching me of the lives of struggling children and families, who are still able to laugh and smile and feel joy with us and one another. The students here are so open, and excited to learn no matter how difficult their lives are. I am so happy to have met and learned from so many people here and to be able to share my experiences with such a wonderful community.
Violet
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By Sara Nerone | Founder
By Sara Nerone | Founder
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