Report from Formosa

A Dynamic and Lively Team-Activity-Skills Training Camp

 

Young initiates from all over Formosa attend team-activity-skills training at the Taichung Center.

[Taichung] In the summer of 2000, the Formosan Centers jointly hosted a camp at Penghu to provide a colorful and enjoyable summer vacation for the children of the Quan Yin Family. Due to the enthusiastic response of fellow initiates after the camp, the contact persons in Formosa met and decided to hold more activities at the Hsihu Center or at local centers to combine Master's teachings with fun, thus helping the children to grow both physically and spiritually. The Formosan centers then contacted their young initiates, and asked if they would like to be trained by selected initiates in proper professional skills to become service staff for future team activities at their local centers.

The response was very positive, and a group of enthusiastic young initiates from all over Formosa came to the Taichung Center. With a spirit of service and devotion, they attended the first phase of their two-day training. The lessons focused on team activity skills and practice. Other topics, including child psychology, the practice of empathy techniques, and self-confidence training, were also covered. The goal was to teach the trainees to establish correct concepts about helping others, develop their potential, and elevate their character and self-restraint in order to form a solid base for future social service work.

During the lessons, all the trainees studied attentively. With guidance and instruction from the working staff, they discovered many latent capacities that they had not been aware of previously. The participants all said that they learned a lot. One trainee shared his experience by saying, "After the training was over, I had the opportunity to attend an English speech contest. So I naturally brought into play the spirit of 'courageously breaking through oneself' that I had learned from the training camp." Thus, even before he was able to serve others, he himself benefited from the training.