It is still much part of their lives

The children playing with their new equipment at the school (Truong Tieu Hqc Song Cau) the Premier's ANZAC Spirit School Prize students visited.

A journal extract from Tayla Wilson

Seeing the children play with their new equipment, it made my day

The school was at the end of Luscombe Airfield where some of our soldiers landed during the war, so there was a historical element to the visit as well. The students were all excited to see us, they were all incredibly well-mannered and polite, standing to say hello and goodbye. We had some difficulty talking to the teachers and the students, but we were lucky to have our excellent tour guides, Mr T and Mrs Thao to translate for us.

We sat down with the students in one of their classrooms, while Malcolm explained where we all lived in Australia. It took a lot of effort to get the map to look some-what like Australia, and Western Australia lost half of its land area! The students and teachers looked equally confused with the geography lesson! The students sang us a song with Mrs Thao, about mateship during the Vietnam War, even though we didn’t understand the lyrics it was so nice to see them all joining in and really enjoy singing with their peers. For them to know all the lyrics of the song, being about the war, shows that it is still much part of their lives. The school was so different to what we are used to; the windows have bars through them with no glass, there was no door and the teacher taught on a blackboard. It was such a different experience, not really what I was expected. It made me realise how much we take for granted – we have air conditioning when it’s hot and heating when it’s cold, laptops for every student, doors, windows, a playground and play equipment. These students don’t have half of what we have, but look equally, if not, happier than we are.

From our fundraising efforts back at home, we were fortunate enough to donate a data projector, laptop, stationary kits, sports equipment and stories to the school. It was great to see the excitement and joy in the kid’s faces when they received our gifts. One of the teachers told us how they had been borrowing a data projector from another school, it gave us a warm-fuzzy feeling when you know that they now have their own that they can share with the community and use to help them teach. Seeing the children play with their new equipment, it made my day. To know that we had made a difference for this community and for these children is something that you can’t put a price on.