Our plans for project week were to arrive in Taichung, do two days of service at Huashan Social Welfare Foundation, and then do two days of hiking on Hehuanshan before returning to Singapore.

During our time volunteering at Huashan we participated in various activities in order to better understand the challenges that the elderly may face. We took part in a workshop by one of the social workers at Huashan which illustrated some issues that the elderly may have difficulties with – for example, we wore glasses and earmuffs to experience the difficulty of having deteriorating senses, and wore gardening gloves to experience impaired mobility and motor skills.

We also visited a nearby hospital with mobility assistance equipment (such as wheelchairs), and were able to try out these pieces of equipment. A member of staff at the hospital also talked us through some of the challenges mobility-impaired people may face in environments that may seem easy to navigate, such as the living room and bathroom. I found this very interesting as I was able to gain insight to the challenges that the elderly may face, that I had never previously considered.

One of the most rewarding aspects of our volunteer experience at Huashan was visiting some elderly members of the community in Taichung. Many of these aunties and uncles lived alone, and I felt very honoured to be able to visit them and pay them company, as well as listen to them as they talked about small anecdotes from their day-to-day lives.

Something interesting that I learned from our volunteer experience was that in Taiwan, receipts can be used to redeem cash prizes! Despite being from Taiwan and having visited Taiwan many times, I didn’t know that one could match up the end-digits on a receipt with the winning digits and redeem money. One of the tasks we helped with was categorising receipts by end-digit, and then sorting through each stack of receipts in order to see if there were any winning receipts. Using receipts to redeem cash prizes is one of the means that Huashan uses to sustain itself, so it was very exciting for us when we found a few winning receipts!

Our hike to Hehuanshan was one of the most memorable aspects of our trip, as we had to deal with the physical and mental challenges of a high altitude trek. The hike was physically quite challenging, as the path up the mountain consisted of many steep ‘steps’ carved into the face of the mountain. However, while the walk was extremely draining physically, I found it even more difficult mentally. On paper, the trek looked quite short, but the distance that we had to walk didn’t account for all of the ups and downs of the mountainous path. There were also many small peaks on the way to the main peak that we had to reach, and this meant that there were many times where we falsely thought that we had finally reached our goal and could begin the descent. There were even points where we (jokingly) discussed whether or not we should just call it quits and make our way back down again. However, if presented with the opportunity, I would still choose to do the same hike again because of how rewarding it felt to finally reach the peak and enjoy the view of where we had began from.

During the project week planning process, I took on the role of logistics coordinator.

As part of this role, I took responsibility for helping to find suitable flights and accommodation. We found a Japanese-style hotel room near to Taichung train station that would be able to fit all five of our group members, but due to the heavy workload that we were faced with at the time, we temporarily put off booking our accommodation. When we returned to make the booking, the price of the accommodation had risen so that it was now outside of our budget, so I had to book our back-up option instead. This was a new experience for me because project week was my first time planning a trip within a very strict budget (previous planning experiences have all been a lot more flexible than project week).

In addition to booking accommodation, I worked with another group member to get in contact with an outdoor activity provider for the adventure portion of project week. I found this to be one of the more stressful portions of the planning process as we had to change adventure provider multiple times due to budgeting issues and concerns from the school regarding the qualifications of the guides. Though the responsibility of liaising with the adventure provider was not delegated to me, I helped the group member in charge of contacting the adventure provider to draft and respond to emails.

My final tasks as the logistics coordinator were to plan out the itinerary and calculate the budget for our trip. I found calculating the budget to be the most draining and tedious task, as the budget was very tight. It was extremely difficult to make sure that we stayed within budget due to the high costs of our flights and adventure costs, which combined took up 70% of our budget. The budget was a key topic of ethical debate, as I had heard stories of previous project week groups who left many other costs outside of their budgeting in order to appear as if they were within budget. However, as a result of the budgeting process I was able to develop my research skills – for example, I used the Internet extensively in order to check the average cost of a meal in Taichung as well as the public transportation fares that we would need to factor in.

In addition to the aforementioned tasks, I also worked to liaise with the service provider. The service provider we worked with was Huashan Social Welfare Foundation, recommended to me by my family living in Taiwan. Huashan works with elderly members of society in Taiwan, many of whom live alone or have mental or physical conditions, by visiting them and providing them with any products they may need, as well as a ‘link’ to society. I was highly interested in this as I had been working with the elderly for my local service CAS experience (Memoirs of the Pioneer Generation), and therefore already had some awareness on the struggles that the elderly can face, particularly now that Singaporean society is beginning to age. In addition, my mum’s side of the family is from Taiwan and through my previous visits to Taiwan I was aware of the problems that Taiwan is facing with regards to the aging population, and the global issue of aging populations. Consequently, I was very eager to volunteer at Huashan.

Liaising with Huashan was both challenging and rewardable as the communication took place in Chinese. I am fluent in oral Mandarin and can read and write to a proficient level, but had never communicated formally in written Chinese before, so I found the task of emailing Huashan to set up contact slightly daunting at first.

Below are screenshots of a couple of the emails I exchanged with Amy, the head of Huashan’s regional branch in Taichung. In each email I sent, I made sure to also include an English version below for our group members and supervisor.

I worked with Amy to create the itinerary for our two days of volunteering at Huashan, and translated a version into English for our group members.

Overall, I found the planning process to be quite enjoyable and a great opportunity to learn more. This was my first time planning a trip totally independently without much input from adults, and within a quite strict set of guidelines. This was a good opportunity for me to develop independence and leadership skills, as I took responsibility for a wide array of tasks within our group.

So far I have found project week planning to be an at times tiring but overall productive and interesting experience. Our group has faced various challenges, such as being asked to change our location from Taipei to Taichung in Taiwan, as well as having to switch adventure providers three times. I have also had the opportunity to take on a leadership position in the group by liaising with our service partner in Chinese to create a detailed service itinerary, which has been an interesting challenge and helpful for helping me to improve my Chinese in a different setting than the classroom. Some of these challenges and developments are outlined in this short video of me and one of my group members:

Looking forward I would like to continue developing my leadership skills in the group. Though usually I tend to take on a more passive role, taking on an active role in the planning process has showed me that I am able to take on and delegate responsibility and I would like to carry this on outside of our project week group as well.