Good evening everyone and Xin Chao from Vietnam! Our students have been a bit busy today and haven’t had time to write a blog, which gives me the opportunity to share what an amazing job they have been doing.
As the project coordinator from Round Square, I wanted to take the space in the blog sequence to share how well the students have engaged in the local community, committed to the project work and formed such a strong working team. Myself and my colleagues have been impressed with the way in which the students have embraced the challenges and opportunities and taken everything in their stride. Many of them have learned new skills, tasted new foods, met new friends and been challenged by the integration into a new culture. They have lifted more rocks than they thought possible, dug more holes than they are likely to in their lives and possibly moved more barrow loads of concrete than the average person does in their entire lives. In taking all this in their strides, we have not heard one complaint, one concern or one request for additional rest. As a group they have performed amazingly.
So what does this mean…….well, for the individual students I believe the impact will be far reaching beyond this project and the learnings and reflections will create opportunities for personal growth and development back in their daily lives. For the community, it means two rice yields per year. With the dam now certainly on target for completion tomorrow, the local village community will be able to double their annual rice production thanks to the dam providing irrigation for their rice fields throughout the year.
The effort the students have put into this project has been significant and something they should be proud of, in just the same way the community see the dam…..life changing.
From a Dam fine Vietnam!
Ben George
Round Square Projects & Expeditions Coordinator
