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Enjoy Both the Fun of Travel and the Emotion of Volunteering! Having a Blast on a Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Volunteer Trip — Gap Year Review Part 1

#Restored life energy and a renewed spirit of challenge #New inspiration and local cultural experiences #Took time for self-reflection

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     Everyone joined Gap Year with the same worries and concerns as I had, and in the endSeeing people overcome and conquer those things themselves through Gap Year made me think I could do it too.


    -Enjoy both the fun of travel and the moving experience of volunteering! Enjoying a volunteer trip to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam / Choi Da-young, Gap Year participant (gapper)

     

     

     

    # I wanted to regain the energy for my life.

     

    Hello! My heart is always in my twenties, but in reality I''m a working woman in my thirties.Until my twenties I had many things I wanted to do and was always challenging myself with new experiences,But once I got a job and became a working person, the reality was that I couldn''t do everything as I pleased.

    With the boring routine of company–home repeating, I fell into a rut and increasingly felt like I was losing myself. SoI wanted to use this opportunity to take on a new challenge, rediscover the person I had forgotten, and regain my life energy.

    I had been following the Korea Gap Year website with interest, reading projects and reviews and feeling vicariously satisfied, and this time with the long holiday I could take a slightly longer vacation, so I decided to participate in a Gap Year project.

    Before departure I carefully read the orientation materials provided by Gap Year! I prepared for the trip by filling out the orientation materials one by one, so there weren''t any major difficulties. 




    Traveling while volunteering, meeting not only Western friends but also local friends! Just hearing that sounded so fun and made my heart flutter after a long time!! So going abroadI had no worries at all about staying and adapting, but what I was most worried about was living with unfamiliar foreign volunteers in an unfamiliar place.

    If I were good at English the burden would have been less, but since I''m not good at English I worried whether I could fit in. It''s not something I can do alone—I have to live with others—so I worried if I could do well. I had those worries the most. But worrying doesn''t solve anything, so I soothed myself with the mindset ''let''s just dive in!'' I downloaded English conversation dictionary apps, everyday conversation apps, a Vietnamese phrase app, and thought that if I used Google Translate diligently it would work out somehow. ^^;

    Above all, I thought that whether it turned out good or bad, it would be a valuable experience either way.Ah! Reading the reviews over and over really helped. Everyone joined Gap Year with the same worries and concerns as I had, and in the endSeeing others overcome and conquer things themselves through Gap Year made me think I could do it too.


    # I wanted to feel alive.


     


     


    Through this Gap Year, I hoped that new experiences different from my usual life wouldbring a bit more stimulation and vitality to my life.

    And I hoped this experience would be an opportunity and starting point to grow one step further. While giving myself relaxation and healing from the repetitive daily life and work, I wanted to feel alive by doing what I like and what I wanted to do!

    I wanted to revive that pure, dreamy, and adventurous spirit from before—the one that hadn''t been worn down or stained by society.

    I had wanted to try overseas volunteering since university, but back then I didn''t have the courage and felt financial pressure, so I couldn''t easily take on the challenge. I thought I''d do it later when I earned more money,

    But after getting a job and working, I found that I had money but not time. I regret that I should have worked more part-time during university to be able to go ㅠㅠSo this time, adding the hard-won vacation onto the golden holiday, I decided to challenge myself with overseas volunteering. I really felt that if not now, I might never get the chance.At this time I kept wondering, is it right to simply want to do this? I have many things I must do. Most people worry between what they must do and what they want to do. In my case, the answer to that worry was,What I have to do now is what I want to do! That was it. 




    So while looking into overseas volunteer programs, I—being a working professional—looked for a project I could do within about two weeks, and among them I wanted a volunteer activity where I could take it a bit more relaxed and enjoyably spend time with children. But because the gap year projects offered such a wide variety of volunteer activities, I couldn’t choose on my own, so I requested a consultation from Gap Year.

    The counselor recommended things suited to my personality and what would be helpful for me, and I ultimately decided on this project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam because it included a city tour and cultural classes, the schedule wasn’t tight so I could freely use my free time for travel, and I could work with children.




    I did want a volunteer activity where I could be with children, but to be honest I felt some reluctance at first when I heard it was volunteering with children with disabilities. Since my English is really poor, the projects available to me were limited. I even considered switching to something more physical like environmental volunteering or community-building, but since I was already trying overseas volunteering with a fresh mindset I got that baseless adventurous spirit of “let’s try volunteering with disabled children too!”… so I participated, and in the end I’m really glad I did!!!!

    At the organization I went to, those with strong English skills sometimes ran English-education volunteer programs for local children,and for the English-education volunteering, many of the volunteers were native English speakers, so even among the volunteers they spoke very fast, which would have made it harder to adapt.

    Where I volunteered, we would go to the center with local Vietnamese university student volunteers and 3–4 foreign volunteers to play with the children, help feed them, and help clean the center. Even though we couldn’t communicate, the young children would come up and hug and smile at us first. For children who spend almost all their time confined inside the center, people coming to visit was a joy and became a special part of their routine.

    Being with these children was actually more comforting emotionally, the activities were much simpler, and just my presence helped—the kids loved it so much that I was able to enjoy the volunteering even more.



    # A typical day in Vietnam



    I usually wake up between 7:30 and 8:00 AM. Volunteers who go for education programs live a bit farther and start earlier, so they usually leave the center around 8:00, while volunteers like me who work with children with disabilities leave the center around 9:00, so we had a bit more free time!

    It’s about a five-minute walk from the volunteer accommodation to the bus stop; take the bus about 20 minutes to reach the volunteer site. We arrived at the site between 9:30 and 10:00, greeted the children, and spent time playing with them.

    After about 30 minutes of playing with the children, because many of them have physical difficulties we help with feeding. When the local staff prepare the meals, children who can eat by themselves eat at the table, but since many have difficulty moving we seat them in wheelchairs, secure them, and feed them.

    Even during meals the children move constantly and often have poor digestion, so a lot of patience is required, but it felt most rewarding when the children finished their meals completely. After feeding them, while the local staff bathed and changed the children, we swept the center and the roughly 1.5-hour morning volunteer session ended.

    Then we return to the accommodation, eat the lunch provided there, take a nap or have personal time, and around 2:00 PM go back for the afternoon volunteering. The afternoon activities are the same as the morning: play with the children, take those who can be placed in wheelchairs for short walks, prepare dinner, feed the children, and after about 1.5 hours the afternoon volunteering finishes and the day’s volunteer work is over.

    The program I did with children with disabilities tends to end earlier than other volunteer activities, so if I arrived early I could shower first, then other volunteers would come to shower and go down to the kitchen to eat dinner. After that the schedule is personal and people either go into town or do their own thing,Most weekdays people rest at the accommodation, and on Friday evenings or weekends they freely go into the city or travel.



    # A real local-led city tour you wouldn’t get on a regular tourist or travel itinerary!!



    Among the friends I volunteered with, the most memorable was a Danish friend who came to Vietnam after graduating high school to spend a gap year volunteering.

    She said she was spending her gap year volunteering for five months in Vietnam, Cambodia, and other places; her major is in hospital/healthcare, so she focused on volunteering to help children with disabilities and sick people. It’s a specialized field and could be tough, but she never showed any sign of struggle—she played with the kids and smiled brightly—and I thought she was amazing. She’s much younger than me, but I really learned a lot from her and she left a strong impression!

    And the local Vietnamese volunteers who did the Vietnam culture class at orientation!! After the volunteer class ended they asked about our plans for the next day, and when we said we didn’t have any, they asked if we’d tried the local restaurants, if we’d been into the city, and promised they would give us a proper Vietnamese city tour!!! 

    The next day after volunteering, riding through Ho Chi Minh City on motorcycles like true locals to see the night view was truly my favorite experience. We ate dinner at street stalls where locals go, saw the night view by the river, and enjoyed a city tour arranged by real locals that you wouldn’t get on an ordinary tourist trip!!! It was seriously amazing—absolutely the best.


Why This Project

What makes this project special

#Rekindling Motivation#Rest & Recovery#Inner Peace & Fulfillment#Volunteer trip#Warm-hearted recharge through volunteering#Global career#Educational volunteering#Educational planning#Bonding with children#Regain confidence#Self-expression#Change in life attitude#Improved communication skills#Feeling alive#Regain inner peace#Restore self-esteem#Practical use of English#Being loved#Recover myself

Take just one brave step.
GapYear will take care of the rest.