In early November, two Indian volunteers, Vivek Kumar and Abhishek Kumar, came to Taiwan to learn the work of the Tzu Chi work in Taiwan. They vowed to bring back what they learnt to their homeland to help their fellow countrymen live a better life.
Environmental Protection Mission
On November 8th, at the Neihu Recycling Station in Taipei, Abhishek and Vivek saw many elderly people happily doing recycling. They were surprised. “The main activities for the elderly in India are sleeping and watching TV,” said Abhishek.
Vivek said, “I saw that people in Taiwan have good habits and ideas how to protect the environment. After drinking, you wash the bottles right away. It is different in India, where people litter casually.”
After their visit to the recycling station, their conclusion was that people in Taiwan have good habits in sorting and recycling. They want to bring these good ideas back to India to promote environmental protection.
Charity Mission
Four years ago, Vivek was a driver in New Delhi who did volunteer work once in a while. Because his hometown is in Bodhgaya, where the Buddha attained Enlightenment, he went back there to do volunteer work. He also invited his relatives and friends to do it together with him.
Therefore, he started relief distributions to help the poor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, all the cities were locked down. Vivek found that, when they held distributions in Bodhgaya, the little help from them had a big influence on the poor. He learned that charity work is very important and wanted to do more.
In fact, it is not an easy feat. They realized that they need to learn more methods of how to do Tzu Chi work. But, at that time, they could not come to Taiwan to learn and could only study online.
“Now we are here. It has been two weeks to have training classes here. We truly learned a lot,” said Vivek.
Education Mission
In India, there are not many places for people to receive education in rural areas.
Abhishek said, “Education is very important. It can change individuals, society, and countries. Through education, people gain wisdom, which no one can steal from them.”
“In Taiwan, you have many ways for students to learn. I plan to support and help children in India to have the habit to go to school every day,” said Vivek.
With wisdom, people can make the right decision and live a better life.
Medicine Mission
India is a big country. There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. In the poor villages, the medical situation is still almost the same as in the time of the Buddha 2,500 years ago.
In a village called Badrepool, Abhishek found a boy with a protruding belly named Sandeep Kumar. With help from the Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, he and Vivek took Sandeep to a good hospital in a big city. Now, after surgeries and many check-ups, he is fine and healthy.
So they also vow to help the rural residents receive better medical treatment in the future.
They both feel grateful to Master Cheng Yen for letting them have such opportunities to give of themselves.
In Taiwan, they learnt many ways to help people and make the world a better place. They hope to bring what they have seen, heard, and learnt back to India, and start to promote environmental protection, charity, education, and medicine.
We hope that, in the near future, more and more people will join them to help more of those in need in India.
Join Tzu Chi and let us create a better place for all living beings.
*Article: Meichen Liao
