I was wearing two jackets, socks, and an earmuff. The weather was under 10 degrees Celcius, and I went to a Ha Giang school for my first volunteer field trip. The first kid I met from the school was a lot shorter than me, and he was wearing flip-flops.
How could he endure the cold? – I thought
His cheeks were rosy, and his shoulder was trembling because of the cold. He wasn’t the only one. The school had plenty more students in need who are waiting for us to bring donated winter clothes.
I came to the school, and the oldest kids in the middle school were the same height as my 6-year-old cousin due to a lack of nutritious food.
It was the first time I’ve ever participated in a social activism activity for fighting poverty. I put my time and effort into this small charity project for the Ha Giang students. The project was to help fight poverty – a major social challenge- in Vietnam.
So, speaking from experience, how can social activism help to fight social challenges?
According to Wikipedia, activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good.
I followed some Instagram pages that constantly address social issues in our daily life. For example, I grew up in a traditional Vietnamese household that taught me that as a girl, one of the most important goals that I must achieve is to marry an amazing husband.
No one taught me to prioritize myself when I was young.
But everything changed when I started using social media.
From Instagram, Facebook, etc., I read posts of social activism organizations. I watched videos of empowered women who taught me that I should be striving to improve myself and that having a spouse is can be an option.
I read news about other people who have been facing the same situation and acknowledged what they have done to overcome it.
Social Activism To Help Myself
By being provided with information about feminism regularly, I know what I should do and share it with my community. I understand my worth and wanted other young girls to experience that too. I had resolved to learn from my own challenge.
In my opinion, people would better understand the action or surround them by promoting content about social challenges through posts on social media platforms or links to more detailed sources.
Social Activismt To Help The Community
Moreover, social activism helps you to create value for the community.
I wouldn’t know that students at Ha Giang need help in the winter without browsing my Facebook news feed on a regular Sunday morning. I read about their stories being posted online, which unconsciously motivated me to lend a hand.
My help might not be impactful enough to help all the unfortunate children in Vietnam or Ha Giang; however, I know that I’m making some progress, and with the support of more volunteers, more students could be helped.
Gradually, solving my own situation and helping other people in their situations benefit society. No government or country’s nation would be able to resolve a social challenge without the help of others.
As long as the challenge is called “social,” resolving it requires the collaboration of everyone in the society.
In short, social activism activities and efforts are the tools we use to help to solve social challenges.
How To Utilize Social Activsm In Solving Social Challenges?
Step one: Regularly enhance your knowledge about social challenges
Step two: Spread your understanding and opinion about society and its issues and challenges.
Step three: Help a person or a group of people in need to connect with the appropriate government agency or non-profit organization.
At Project Sprouts, we realize that we can not solve all the problems of poverty in a situation like this. But we can seek to make a difference in the lives of needy children by giving them school supplies and encouraging them to continue their education; we can give them winter coats, boots, and blankets to help them stay warm during the cold winter months.
Project Sprouts would love to have you be a part of our community and help us to help worthy children in North Vietnam. We cannot solve all the world’s problems, but we can do our part to help poor kids grow by giving school supplies, winter coats, boots, and other supplies.
You can find out more about Project Sprouts by clicking here or go to our give now page to donate by clicking here. As we are a grassroots organization, all funds go to help those in need.
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Because of the lack of the Vietnamese national budget, numerous Vietnamese schools are still in poor condition, so that many non-profit organizations and companies have given these schools supplies to support the students’ learning. Some schools may even lack basic facilities like proper toilets.
You can learn more by reading Poverty In Vietnamese Schools And Why We Give School Supplies by clicking here.
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Human poverty is one of those things that can be quite difficult for us to understand. Many groups are trying to eradicate poverty from the face of the earth, but it is not as easy as it sounds.
Many things can cause human poverty. One, of course, is by the lack of money to have a reasonable standard of living. Another is denial or lack of access to opportunities or education. Literacy or the lack of literacy can cause poverty. Also, the lack of job opportunity, properer medical care, and the lack of other necessities as proper sanitation.
You can learn more by reading What Do You Understand By Human Poverty? 6 Reasore.
