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Before, my daily routine was like this,
my parents took me to school in the morning. At noon we had lunch at school, then we had a nap
In the afternoon, after being through with school, I stayed to hang out with my friends. Until 5, 6pm my parents would come and take me home.
When I got home, I took a shower and prepared to have dinner with my family.
After finishing eating, I did the dishes,
then I took a short break and after that I studied for a little while.
Finally, around 10pm, I headed to bed.
All the stuff I just said are basically just normal things we might all go through every day.
Let me tell you the next story, it happened when I was 7 years old. I was home alone,
and somehow I realized that the front door was open, it wasn't locked. So I just walked outside, and I got lost.
Since I left by myself, nobody knew where I was going, or where to look for me.
I still remember I was just walking around, and then stayed by a tree looking at people passing by me, hoping to find any familiar faces.
I didn't find anybody. I just stood there, eyes were about to turn red, tears were about to fall, but I didn't cry.
It was cold and I was hungry, and only wore thin clothes.
No beanie, no scarf, no gloves, the only good thing I could think of was that I guess I don't have to go to school tomorrow. Lol.
That was the first time in my life that I realized how small and fragile I was.
If asked what feeling is the most frightening feeling in my life, this would be it.
The feeling of a child that is losing his way, without care, and most importantly, without protection
always afraid that something bad could happen anytime.
A couple of days ago, I received an invitation from UNICEF Vietnam asking me to join with them for the good of Vietnamese children,
and I was lucky to have a conversation with the organization's representative in Vietnam.
Anyway it was Wednesday night, it was 11pm after the talk, and if I'm not sleepy by that time,
I will have mood swings and start thinking about stuff.
And that was the night that I recalled the memory of being lost as a child.
I realize one thing that, there are a lot of people out there that are pretty lucky
but not the luck of being rich and wealthy, or the luck of having a happy family, with parents, grandparents, and siblings.
The kind of luck I'm talking about is that, they always have a certain option or direction they could choose, more or less.
When I was in kindergarten, teachers always asked us: What do you want to be when you grow up?
One said he wanted to be a doctor, another said he wanted to be an engineer...
What do you feel after you've heard these things?
Of course it would be very hard to achieve, but the important thing is,
through what was spoken, people could see each child's dream and his/her own option in it.
It doesn't necessarily have to be true one day, but the most important thing is, you can see hope existed in it.
Do you feel you're lucky?
There are a lot of people, including me, who don't realize how lucky they have been throughout their lives.
This is probably because, growing up I received many wonderful things from people,
and as time passed, I began to get used to receiving good things from others.
And then when something bad happened to me, I would freak out easily
and thought to myself, my future's over, and I'm hopeless.
But to be honest, this is not true. It's just that as one door closes, another opens.
The thing is, are you brave enough to accept the fact and start looking around?
That Wednesday night, I browsed the web to look for some more information and read more about UNICEF,
and suddenly I saw these pictures:
They got me thinking
What do you see in these pictures?
They made me recall the feeling of getting lost when I was a child, the feeling of being scared and frightened,
without care, without protection, and especially,
the feeling of being lost in life.
That's why I just want to say one thing, please give me your hand so that together we can help Vietnamese children.
Please do something meaningful
Don't let these kids lose their way. Please give them options.. dreams..
please give them hope.