China Study Tour: The journey continues — University of Illinois Extension Blog

July 31, 2008

The journey continues

Here some more impressions by Ya:

It was an unforgettable experience to me of going to Memorial Camp. The Allerton park is a wonderful location that provides a tranquil surrounding for the young people to be embraced by the nature. My first glance when I arrived there was a group of young people who were apparently in different ages playing soccer in the green grass lightheartedly. It reminded me of my childhood, which was a little plain compared to theirs. In the camp, we experienced a lot of things, such as zip line, rowing, challenging course, etc. We ate in the big dinning hall with all of the kids. It was really fun, and we called it experiential learning.

"Planting the seeds of hope. Working together to make a difference one life at a time." The sentence I found on the wall of the Old King Orchard community center is what I'd like to use in our China's program. I was very impressed by Joyce and her words, "There are got to be someone to do something for these kids." Joyce is a life long volunteer in O.K.O community center taking care of inner city children. Most of the children in our program are from low income families. One of our goals is to ensure them equal access to educational resource and empower them. I believe it shares the equal importance with "to make the best better." Today I'm very glad to see the variety of the 4-H. I believe these varieties will help the Illinois 4-H become stronger.

Posted by Martina Mohrbacher at 12:41 PM |