TO LOVE AND TO BE BELOVED
by Annie Y
We held a four-day, three-night summer camp for the Yiliang County University students who are in the school assistance programme. The camp theme was “Words of love: Love yourself, love others, love society”. Activities comprised workshops on communication skills, conflict management, bridging dreams and ideals, and a movie appreciation time.
During the communication skills and conflict management workshops, students learnt to build positive communication skills through drawing, case presentations, videos, games and discussing experts’ theoretical perspectives. Not only did these activities deepen their knowledge in communication and conflict management, they also enabled the students to understand and accept themselves.
The session on bridging dreams and ideals helped many students bring clarity to their dreams and goals, and gain determination to strive hard to reach their goals. A medical student reaffirmed his aspiration to be a good doctor. Another student said that when he had his own family, his dream was to lead his family members to do meaningful work, like organising summer activities for students.
At the camp, the students watched a French movie, and realised that a love story about love didn’t even use the phrase “I love you”, since they could use different ways to express love to each other. After the camp, many of them responded that they realised the importance of loving themselves and others. They learnt that they needed to express love, ways to do so, and that they were always worthy of being loved.
We are thankful that the students had a rewarding summer camp. May their lives be filled with sunshine!
