VSA1214 Agriculture / Organic Agriculture Camp 

the Peace Village 15­ - 27 September 2012

Workcamp Update

Short Term Project: VSA 1214 Agriculture / Organic Agriculture Camp in the Peace Village 15­27 September 2012

By: Phoebe Chen – Hong Kong

I’m so impressed to have the big group of long term and short term volunteers welcoming me at the meet up point – Hat Yai Railway Station including Bowve (Team Leader), Katja, Jaeyoon, Jowon, Jun, Rich, Jane… etc. As my partner of the same project from Korea didn’t show up, my work is a combination of joining other teams in Agriculture Farm and Renovation in Peace Village, and ICL camp with non-formal and informal education.

As most of the long term volunteers are in holiday in my first week stay, I’ve been working with the short term volunteer team from Korea and Japan. We’re been having quite a hard working week as the outdoor work we need to complete are making bamboo chairs, fixing the bungalow stairs… we’re lucky to have the “master” teaching us the skill as none of us has knowledge and experience on how. So learning start from cutting the bamboo tree and how to combine each small pieces together, surviving from the unstable humid rainy weather, billions of mosquito kisses, giant ant bites… we enjoyed a lot in the natural environment of Peace Village.

For the weekly ICL teaching class, we have the previous day meeting for preparations on teaching style and games. And it all worth when I see the locals kids positive learning attitude  as they are trying to spend every minutes to learn more by writing down every single word I wrote on the white board even just for games. I had turned down so many English teaching  voluntary works before as I’m afraid I’m not patience enough to kids and now I’m pretty sure I should well use of my skill to help others.

After the “see Ya Party” for the short term team, my second week of stay is working with the two long term volunteers in farm, painting in village and more renovation works.

I have to say a big Thank You to VSA, Peace Village let me having the opportunities to stay here, even thou’ it’s just 2 weeks, I’ve strengthen my skills  much more in every way.  Much appreciation to our open-minded teacher Tum, we have great discussions on the project, village, work and goal. And lucky to have our team leader Bowve taking care of us in every way especially all those “silly” games as warm up before morning task work. Thank you to uncountable local volunteers arranging everything for the team.

I’m looking forward to be back to Peace Village as the world needs more people like here even though it’s just the beginning, we’re working on it and hopefully we can make it happen.  And if anytime anywhere needs my help, I’m more than happy to hear from you guys.