See, being homeless, isn’t as EASY as you may think, this will teach people to empathize that’s for certain! From the Newspapers, translated…
The Youth sector of the Department of Education this summer put forth the four days three nights “Wandering Camp Experience”, assigned the senior homeless people, to take the youths to work odds and ends, to get in line for the free meals served, and even, stay on the streets. There were, graduate students from National Taiwan University who’d gone to experience, all of them claimed, “Life is way too hard”.
Because this camp is opened to youths ages fifteen to thirty, it’d made the parents question, why, would they pay, for their kids, to become homeless. But, the activities went along, and, all seventeen participants are eighteen years of age.
The director of the youth department, Jia-Ling Liu said, that the experience camp was sponsored by the Chinese Silver Grass Charitable Foundation, last year was the first time, but, because not enough had signed up, they’d not gotten organized, they’d held it again this year, and, of the adults who’d signed up, four had already dropped out, because of the contents of the program.
The participants of the experience camp followed the homeless, the volunteers of the organization, and experienced firsthand, what, it was like, to be homeless. Everybody was given a cash card of $100N.T.s, they’d needed to work for a living (like recycling), selling magazines on the streets, to make their own living, and, had spent at least, one night on the streets with the accompaniment of a social worker.
A student from the Social Work Department of N.T.U., Huang stated, that she was there, because of her curiosity, “it’s truly, a hard way of life”. She kept worrying about not having enough money, she’d had to share a bowl of noodle with someone else. For all three nights, she’d stayed out on the streets, and, she’d gotten rained on, and bitten by a lot of mosquitoes too, and, people keep on passing by her, she couldn’t even sleep. “The life of those living on the streets is quite different from what I’d imagined, if I’m a homeless person, I would want to get out from living like this.”
So, this, is a GREAT way, to help students gain more empathy, I suppose, because, until you had experienced the hardships that life has to offer firsthand, you will NEVER gain that respect for someone who had been living like that for a very long time, and, I’m sure, that this experience, had been, eye-opening, for those who’d gone through the whole process too.
