“This training has helped me a lot to have new skills - to play with children and educate them...Thank you so much A New Day Club for sharing with us so much meaningful information and skills.”- A participant in A New Day Club volunteer training, Vietnam
"A New Day" is the name of the Play for Peace Club located in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Last month in April, they participated in a new event called Compassion Games: Serve the Earth Week which ran from April 16 through 24, and linked it to a training session for volunteers. Led by PFP Certified Trainer Rita Nguyen, the A New Day Club started the process of training new volunteers as well as conducting Compassion Games activities. This was held at the Disability & Capacity Development Centre on the 17th April, one week before the Club hosted a program called United Value with more than 100 children. Despite a small turnout, a very enthusiastic, creative, and energetic group of trainee participants were present. It proved to be a great success. In light of Serve the Earth Week, the game activities took on an environmental theme. For the first activity, the trainees went out to collect natural items such as a small rock, yellow leaves, and flowers which they would find on a street or park. Then they spent 10 minutes creating a picture relating to an environmental problem.
Here are some of their comments which they presented with their pictures: “The Earth is our Big Mother. And she is crying because of her naughty children who cut the tree, throw rubbish into the river, and create so much CO2 to destroy the ozone layer." "We love our Mother and we have to do good actions to make her smile, don’t let her cry anymore, please.” "We are the World, no need to compare Black or White or Yellow." "We should protect our land, our big family, now and immediately.” Participants also created performances through dance and short dramatic plays about the effects of climate change on the Earth to highlight the message "Let's Protect Our Earth in Peace." A New Day also introduced and trained the participants on some peace games, which they can teach to the children.
For the volunteer trainees, it was a great way to learn new skills and to promote games and play as a way to promote peace. “This training has helped me a lot to have new skill - to play with children and educate them...Thank you so much A New Day Club for sharing with us so much meaningful information and skills.” With new volunteers ready to take on the challenge of promoting play for peace games to the children of Ho Chi Minh City, it is a very encouraging start. Watch this space for future updates.
