First impressions from a new student at EarthRights School Mekong

The following post was written by Van, an ERSM student from Vietnam.

Sawadee Ka.

The recent Red T-shirt demonstration in Thailand did not change my love to Thailand, because I have so many awesome Thai friends. Since I arrived in Chiang Mai, I have never felt regret.  

My trip with two other Vietnamese and then with two Burmese students gave me the feeling that I have known someone in advance and it was good. The first talk with other students at the EarthRights School Mekong (ERSM) was not that easy. It is my personality that I am quite uncomfortable surrounded by many unknown people. But at ERSM, that feeling had gone within a day after many ice-breaking activities.

Icebreakers at ERSM Orientation

I am very impressed with the ERSM alumni. I think they are a very good advertising about the school and the kind of people this school recruits. I received a lot of help from Long. And Si Phoung, simply with her smile, she tells me that she is my friend and she offers many help that I don’t know how I could do without her.

I believe that every single one of the student this year is trying their best to make the environment in this school warm and nice. Even though I don’t speak Thai, I can communicate with our cooks Pi Nok and Pi Pan and also other students. That is great.  

I prepare the energy to (1) catch up with the information and knowledge at the school and (2) enjoy the short period in Chiang Mai to discover the city. For my first purpose, I really enjoy the first class. I think the class materials are very well prepared, especially the movies. They are very emotional, motivated and inspiriting. Stand up and fight for human rights issue is taboo topic in my country. Everyone has their family or significant ones and fight for some things the government does like may cause the harassments target to someone we love. I am happy that this class provided examples of the peaceful, consistently and successful demonstrates about human rights for us. For the alumni and ERSM class of 2010 may not work directly with environment and human rights, they still can promote these issue to people who do not know about these. I believe that education can significantly change people’s lives. And we are here to learn, to think and to make a different ourselves and for our communities. For my second purpose, I think I save reasonable time to enjoy Chiang Mai so far and I enjoy it very much.

The idea of being here with new nice friends and teachers thrilled me. I want to thank the ERSM staffs for offering me this fellowship, enhancing my education, empowering my passion and providing me a change to do something meaningful for people in my country, which I know I will do. Acceptance at this school also had a very special meaning for me. I always things that all the achievements I made so far were all due to dumb luck. Applying to ERSM was something that I put a lot of my energy to prepared because I wanted it badly. I prayed everyday for being accepted. Now I think I have more confidence and I believe more in myself, which is a good feeling.

I am excited for the next three months because I love my friends here a lot.

Van, Vietnam