Project Worldview - India

The life changing experience!

I really could not find any better words to describe my Exchange experience with AIESEC. It has opened my eyes, my mind and has changed everything else in my life thereafter.

Seriously, can you imagine how much can a short 8 weeks do to you??

Wonders!

Knowing nothing about India at all, I embarked on a Developmental Traineeship in India after my first year at NUS. I just knew that I needed a break from NUS as it was too much of a sad&cold place, esp in my first year. AIESEC NUS was promoting 3 destinations at that time - India, Russia and South Africa.

I chose India since it is the nearest to Singapore. It was a crazy decision nonetheless. I did not anticipate how underdeveloped it really could be, how dangerous it actually was for me to travel there alone, living with strangers, being picked up by some guy from the army in New Delhi (non-AIESECer), of not even anticipate about its super crazy HOT weather! (45-47 C). Perhaps, if I were to have done a thorough research about India before leaving Singapore, I would have pulled out from the programme completely. I guess that's what it means when people say that too much information actually impedes growth? Do you realise that actually the more you know, the less you could actually do/achieve? (Not something that came up intuitively. I actually accidentally kinda learnt this concept from the Managment&Organization MNO1101 module at NUS too.)

Anyways, speaking of my DT experience at India, so what did I do?

• I lived with 9 other interns & 3 native Indians who worked with the NGO. (Netherlands, China, Japan, Germany, USA)
• We slept in the balcony, overlooking th beautiful sky painted with pretty stars, learning some Hindi songs, taking turns to learn each others' songs in various languages.
  
• Conducted a workshop I created and planned myself on 'Imagination' to Primary/Secondary School students.

• Researched and visited the slums where the poor kids lived. Flies all over and we ate our meals with flies flying around too. Speaking of diarhea? Don't think that term exist there.
  
• Bathed in super HOT water with super HOT weather. Slept on a super WARM bed, touching the walls which have had a whole day full of day HEAT in it. It was very very depressing, trust me.
• Cooked for 10 person since we all took turns to cook lunch and dinner.
• Never been clean.
• Faced the problem of water and power cut almost everyday.
  
• Traveled every weekend all the way to the Taj Mahal, Pakistani border, Amritsar, The Golden Temple and of course to the borders of Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan - Sikkim, Gangtok, Shimla, Shillong etc etc.
• Met amazing friends for life! - Brazil, India, Canada, HK, Germany more!
  

The experience really brought me out of my comfort zone and opened my eyes to the bigger world out there. I would have never been so much exposed to both the adversities and diversity in life if this was just any other corporate internship with any investment banks out there. (I interned with an investment a year later.) Hence, I can really assure you that an overseas internship really is beyond just an internship.

Above all, it was truly a life-changing experience for me!




Name : Cathy Chan

LC : NUS

Country matched to: Chandigarh, India

Type of Exchange : DT

Step-by-Step Lviv, Ukraine summer,2008

One day, I was facing my laptop, fighting against hills of homework, a bubble popped out "Mingru, do you blog?" I moved my eyes from excel worksheet to this little thing "wanna share ur DT experience with others?"....life is not just about finishing ur homework, but more and more, so I said yes, without thinking how lousy my English is. Now I am suffering to find a suitable word, but I am happy, with all the interesting and unforgettable memories.

In summer 2008, I participated in Step-by-Step project in Lviv, Ukraine for 2 weeks. During these two weeks, we organized and conducted 3 shifts of 2-week summer camp in English for youngsters aged from 13-16.

who are we?
10 interns from 9 countries and regions. And u believe or not, I met Kat, a girl from HK born on the same day of the same year as me=)

what is the camp about?
The camp was conducted in English, but it was not a simple English camp. The teenagers went through different sessions, as team bonding, world cafe, presentation skill and project management skills workshope, "what's ur dream" to first get to know what's happening outside in the world, then get access to themselves, and finally find out their interest and think about direction in the future.

How is Ukraine?
Emmmm, it is really hard to say.........so let me tell you more about it next time!!

1:30am alr, Gd night.

Name : Zhou Mingru

LC : NUS

Country matched to: Ukraine

Type of Exchange : DT

World Without Borders, UKRAINE!!!! :)

Hi everyone,

My name is Erwet. And yes, that's my full name. lol. I am an Indonesian studying in NUS, majoring in chemical engineering. I am actually one of those people who apply for AIESEC Internship last year (2008) in September.

Initially when I joined AIESEC, I was applying solely to go for an internship, that's it. But you know, AIESEC offers more than just an internship for students. The first time I got to learn more about AIESEC is when I attended an AIESEC conference in Singapore. I was so inspired and energized after attending the conference. I met so many new people from different countries. I just love the feeling of so many people from so many nationalities all in a single relatively small seminar room. And since then, I became more involved in AIESEC, taking different responsibilities and basically just developing myself and my potential. PLUS, I get to meet so many interesting and open-minded people in AIESEC. Trust me, AIESEC people are somewhat different. In a good way of course. Lol.

And I am going to UKRAINE this summer holiday!! I am going to this place called Ternopil. And I would be doing a project called World Without Borders. Basically I would be going to different schools in Ternopil and just educating the children on my home culture, that is Indonesia. I'm going to teach English lessons to these children as well. The idea of me going to a far away country in Eastern Europe and interacting with the local Ukrainian just thrills me!! And I also hope to know the AIESECers in Ukraine. I learn that AIESEC in Ternopil is strong and they are a bunch of friendly people. I hope I can go to their local AIESEC small parties. Invites are most welcomed!

And there are also one guy from NUS who's Indian by nationality who would be going for the same project as me. Guess, I have a travel buddy then. Two girls from NTU would be joining us also. And I would meet more other interns from other parts of Europe as well, I learn. So it's EXCITING and I think it's gonna be a real enriching experience.


















For now I am working on getting a VISA, I would be going there in 1st of June. I already asked my sister to buy me some traditional Indonesian Batik for me to wear for my trip to Ukraine. I want to parade my Indonesian culture there.

I would write more when exciting stuff comes up. Keep reading peeps.

Hugs,
Erwet :D

Details:

Name : Erwet

LC : NUS

Country matched to:UKRAINE
Type of Exchange : Developmental Internship

Poland Peace week 6 Tomasżow Mazowiecki 04

Tuesday 10/03/09

The class is great again! I really like the school now. The student’s English level is high, they not only understand what I am saying, they even ask questions about my video, my presentation and my language. =) I’ve played the Cookie Monster game with some of the not so active classes (as we have time left after the presentation), and it is great to see that all of them get the point of the game at the end (which is that although we come from different cultures and different countries, we all share something in common).

In the afternoon, we have a cooking session! It is sooooooooo fun! Denise kept emphasizing that she is a terrible cook, so she decide to make carrot cake as it is easy ;) Adi is cooking aloo prathe and I am thinking of cooking traditional Chinese food like fried green pepper with pork （青椒炒肉丝）, tomato with scrambled eggs （西红柿炒鸡蛋）and Cucmber Salad (name given by our dear Denise =), in Chinese, 凉拌黄瓜）  During shopping, Adi and I really have some problems finding spices for our dishes. Their vinegar is so weird, it’s something like white vinegar, but with garlic inside, and it smells weird too! But luckily we have no problem finding garlic, ginger and soy sauce. =)

During the cooking, a looooooooot of students come to help, so we almost didn’t do anything during the preparation stage. We have people helping with cutting all the vegetables, meat, garlic and ginger. But to be honest, their cucumber and pork slices are really huge in size ;), but it’s okie =) Denise’s cake is delicious, not so sweet (as the cocoa powder didn’t work), so even the guys like it! Adi’s aloo prathe is also cool, it’s prata with smashed potatos inside, all gals have a lot of fun playing with the flour. My dishes turn out to be not bad either! =) And before we start eating, Maciek asked us how to say “Smachnego” in our language and everyone of us eating, Maciek asked us how to say “Smachnego” in our language and everyone of us say that together in Portugal and Chinese to each other (Our hardworking Adi was still in the kitchen cooking). Haha, actually I have a hard time thinking how to say it in Chinese, then in the end I come out with something like CHI GE HAO FAN (吃个好饭) =P

Name: Feng Ying

LC: NUS

Country matched to: Poland

Type of Internship: DT

Peace_Poland week 6 Tomasżow Mazowiecki 03

Monday 09/03/09

Today is our first day in school, we have 5 lessons in the morning. It is also my first time conducting a class alone (in my previous team, I always have lesson together with Tamuna, an intern from Georgia). To be honest, I was a bit scared before the class. However, all of them turned out to be amazingly great! The students are attentive and participate actively in the class. They are surprised to see me dressing in sari; they express their envy  when I tell them Singapore has summer all the time; they smile when I say I love the snow in Poland; they give me the “grhhh” sound when I show them how Singaporeans eat ice-cream with bread; they have a lot of fun listening to me speaking and seeing me writing in Chinese. And again, we get delicious caked for Women’s Day =) =) =)

In the afternoon, we have an informal meeting session with the students. It’s quite fun, we played the Guest & Host game with them. I like this game, It was really great for cultural tolerance and I think it would be a good idea to introduce it in Prep Sem for all EPs. Haha, I’m really very OGX. =P We also shared with each other the funny things in our countries. For example, in Brazil, if you show the “OK” gesture, it actually means f***; and in Poland, when you hear people saying “no no no’ , it actually means “ok ok ok”. So once when Adi (an intern from India) asked his host’s mother :” Can I have something to eat?” he was so confused when he heard the answer “no, no, no” then saw the mother brought food and tea for him. Hahaha~~

Name: Feng Ying

LC: NUS

Country matched to: Poland

Type of Internship: DT

Peace week 6 Tomasżow Mazowiecki- 02

Sunday 08/03/09

Today is our first day in Tomasżow Maz. After a “good” experience in the traditional Polish bus, we finally reached the town. My host, Sylwia, is a super nice girl who treat me like her younger sister (although the fact is that I am much older than her =P). And she looks like Chinese, with brown hair, slightly yellow skin and brown eyes! The town is beautiful,  with huge forest surrounded by the Pilica river. After a short introduction with the teacher, Sylwia drive me back to her house. I like the houses in the town. Every household paint its house with its favorite colour, so it’s common to see a green house, a yellow house, a white house and a pink house along one street. Even for flat, it was painted with different colours. The bus stop can be yellow, red or white; even the dustbin has different colours. Anyway, the whole town is so colourful and lively! =)

Sylwia is not very good at English, neither are her friends, Gasia, and her sister. So it is really interesting to have conversation with them. And I am so touched when they take out the dictionary and trying to check the words while talking to me. At that moment, I really feel how important our presence or our visiting is to the students and the school that they try to make all the effort they can to communicate with us.  At the beginning of the internship, our OCP was trying to tell us how important our visits were to the schools. He said some of the teachers were even crying when they learnt that they had to chance to participate in the PEACE project. I didn’t believe at that time and I thought he was exaggerating the face and trying to motivate us. However, after traveling to different schools in the whole month, meeting the mayor of the city, getting interviewed by the newspaper and local media and seeing how students crowded around us asking question, I realized that he did not exaggerate anything. We were really treated like superstars in the school and even in the town, in everywhere we go.

Oh, I forgot to mention that today is women’s day! And in Tomasżow Maz., this is a festival for all women, so both Denise (another intern from Brazil) and I received tulips from the students =) =) =)

Name: Feng Ying

LC: NUS

Country matched to: Poland

Type of Internship: DT

PEACE in Poland Peace week 6 Tomasżow Mazowiecki

According to friends who have read my blog, I am like a primary school student when I record down my life. I guess it is not really bad to do that, at least you will know the details of everything. So I will be a primary school student once again now =)

Overview

It was a great week in Tomasżow Maz. The school is super cool; they have one of the best students I have ever met. Most of the classes were so successful that I totally forgot the time when the bell rang and kept talking and talking to them. The house is great too!. It is a bungalow  with a huge garden. The interior design is delicate, even the bathroom was well decorated with high class tiles. And the best thing is that my room and the bathroom are both in the second storey with windows facing the sky. It was always one of my dreams to live in such a house and look up to the sky filled with stars in the night. Every time I looked out of the window, I can see sky with bright moon and shining stars. It is such a peaceful and soothing moment that I really feel like sharing it with people I loved. We have sun and blue sky now, we know spring is coming soon =). It may be normal to have blue sky and sun all the time in Singapore; you may even hate the sun sometimes. However, here is Poland, everyone loves sun! It is gloomy and cloudy all the time, especially during the winter, everyone is longing for sun and spring. After staying one month in Poland, all of us (the interns) fall in love with the sun too!  We will take photos whenever the sun come out and prove that Poland also have sun =P! 

Name: Feng Ying

LC: NUS

Country matched to: Poland

Type of Internship: DT