Nancy volunteers to help her community

DL Teacher Nancy

This week we celebrate National Volunteer Week to acknowledge the generous contributions of those who give up their time and effort to help others.

Nancy is one of our DL teachers who finds great pleasure not only in teaching English but also in volunteering to help her community with her English skills.

Going back 30 years, Nancy remembers how difficult it was for her to settle in Australia as an adult migrant. Even though she was an English lecturer in a university in China, it was still hard to find a job here. Nancy had to go back to full-time study and after completing her Diploma in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), she landed her first job as a teacher on the AMEP program.

Twenty years later Nancy is still doing what she loves best, teaching English in the same program. Most of her students are from a Chinese background with low level English. She is passionate about helping elderly Chinese students in particular as she understands how challenging it is for them to settle in a new country. She makes learning English easy for them and takes pride in their progress.

Nancy did not go out looking for volunteer work but because of her English skills, her friendly personality and her passion to help people, volunteering seemed to find her.

It all started when Nancy joined a Tai Chi class in her community where the local council organises free classes for the increasing Chinese population in the Northern Sydney area.

Being the helpful person that she is, she was always happy to translate and interpret small messages between the organisers and the Chinese people in her classes. This led to Nancy playing a key volunteer role liaising between council staff and the Chinese community.  She uses her time and bilingual skills to help the council communicate class timetables, venues, enrolments and housekeeping instructions to the Chinese community and she translates letters and flyers.

Through these community classes Nancy not only learnt Tai Chi, enjoyed her sketching classes and made friends, but she also had the the chance to give back . She says "Volunteering makes me feel good about helping others".

Research shows that volunteers live happier and healthier lives.  No wonder the motto for National Volunteer Week is "Give Happy, Live Happy". 

• Have you ever volunteered? What did you do?
• What are the benefits of volunteering for new migrants in Australia?
• What kind of volunteer work is available and how can you find it in your area?  Check out this website: Volunteering Australia

Why not share your volunteering experience here and inspire other students!

Traffic in the eye of a DL artist

'Falling Down' by Nancy, DL student, Hurstville college

My name is Nancy.  I used to study Fine Arts when I was at university. In the first 2 years of my studies I did a series of art work about the traffic problem in China.  I always thought the main problem that caused traffic jams was bad traffic facilities and imperfect traffic laws.  Later, however, I realised that the main problem could be people themselves.

Then I did an oil painting named Falling Down.  The size of the artwork is 100cm x 80cm which took me 3 weeks to finish . The picture describes a traffic accident. The black background of this painting makes the traffic accident seem like it happened at night. In the middle of the picture, many people jump off one side of an overloaded old grey truck which makes the trunk fall down soon.  As it shows in the picture, some of them have already fallen down on the ground.  Although you can`t see their faces you can imagine from their clothes that they could be some blue-collar workers, farmers or builders.

The main reason that I did this art work was to try and remind people of the importance of observing traffic rules.  I brushed the colour of the background very quickly and made the background rough and uneven everywhere to create the feeling of people being in a rush when you see it. I deliberately left people`s faces blank to show that the people in the picture could be any of us. Obviously, it is illegal for such a huge number of people to be on one truck, but it sometimes happens in China. Even though everyone knows that it`s very dangerous to jump off the truck, some will still do it.  However, the lame excuse that people use to explain why they don’t obey the traffic laws is that they are in a hurry. 

In my opinion, people who do not obey the traffic rules present the biggest traffic problem.

Congratulations to Nancy on such a wonderful and meaningful piece of art and thanks to her teacher Marina for sharing it.

This week is Road Rules Awareness Week in NSW.  What are the top 10 misunderstood road rules?  
Click here to watch the videos and learn about these rules.  

For discussion:

• Which rule do you need to learn more about?
• Nancy thinks that people's bad habits of breaking traffic rules contribute to accidents.  Do you agree that people have a big part to play in causing traffic problems and accidents?  Why/why not?
• What solutions could you suggest to solving traffic problems?

We'd love to hear your comments below.