[00:08.99]READINGYOUNG VOLUNTEERS
[00:11.94]On the annual International Volunteers Day,
[00:15.41]the world acknowledges the work of millions of people who give their time to help others.
[00:21.03]Many of those who do voluntary work young people,
[00:24.66]and the numbers are growing.
[00:26.31]Around 24,000 Young Volunteers Community Service Stations in China are welcoming increasing numbers of Chinese Youth who want to make a contribution to society,
[00:37.33]and the work they are doing is important.
[00:39.60]As Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations said “…each contribution –no matter how small-can help make a difference”.
[00:48.67]Lu Hao, Li Ying and Meng Yu are just three of the 13.5 million young Chinese who are making a difference,
[00:57.21]and they are also discovering that being a volunteer brings many personal benefits.
[01:02.48]Lu Hao is a middle school student in Guizhou,
[01:05.83]who joined the “1 helps 1” scheme of the Youth Volunteer Community Development Project last year.
[01:13.38]Every Tuesday and Friday he visits and elderly gentleman who lives alone.
[01:18.39]“Mr Zhao is weak and cannot do much for himself without getting breathless and dizzy,
[01:24.01]so I give him some assistance
[01:25.76]I help with shopping, do jobs in the house,
[01:28.69]or read the newspaper to him as his eyesight is not good.
[01:32.34]But mostly we just drink tea and chat.
[01:34.98]He cannot get out to see his friends any more,
[01:37.83]so he enjoys having company.”
[01:39.79]Since Lu Hao began his twice weekly visits, Mr Zhao’s health has improved, and he feels more energetic and optimistic.
[01:48.12]Lu Hao has also found their relationship beneficial.
[01:51.60]Previously history was his weakest subject,
[01:54.65]but it is one which greatly interests Mr Zhao and they often discuss it.
[01:59.51]Mr Zhao’s enthusiasm had inspired Lu Hao to concentrate more on history lessons and his grades have improved a great deal.
[02:07.87]When Lin Ying graduated from ZhengZhou Normal University,
[02:11.94]she decided not to apply for a job straight away.
[02:15.26]Instead she joined the Go West Project organized by the Communist Youth League of China.
[02:21.40]Now she is spending a year in remote part of southwest China working as a volunteer teacher in a village school.
[02:28.17]“The people here are poor, but they have hoping to big hearts and make me feel very welcome.
[02:33.26]I am hoping to improve the standard of education in the school by introducing the modern teaching methods used in the east.
[02:40.39]It is hard work, but I get a lot of satisfaction because the kids are eager to learn.
[02:45.90]It is amazing to see how quickly they improve.
[02:48.86]I really feel I am doing something worthwhile and I am having a great time doing it”
[02:53.69]Lin Ying and the other volunteer teachers in rural areas have helped to achieve astonishing result.
[03:00.35]In one school the pass rate for the national exams rose from 25% to 75% in just one year.
[03:09.41]Education is essential to poverty relief,
[03:12.47]so Lin Ying’s work is making a big difference to the children’s future.
[03:16.62]At the same time she is acquiring valuable skills and experience for her own career.
[03:22.58]Voluntary work often opens u p opportunities for young people because employers and education leaders know that it builds confidence,
[03:31.20]self-awareness, good communication skill and leadership ability.
[03:35.88]Men Yu is studying for her master’s degree in Canada.
[03:39.51]She has a busy timetable, but still finds time for voluntary activities during the weekends.
[03:45.38]“Last month I took part in an event to help starving children in some of the least developed countries.
[03:51.63]Twenty-two of us went without food for 30 hours!
[03:55.26]It was a challenge, but we could drink as much as we liked and we had a doctor there,
[03:59.99]so it was not dangerous.
[04:01.24]We anted to promote awareness of hunger because every day children are dying of starvation.”
[04:06.99]It was a great success.
[04:08.45]The local newspaper and TV reported it and we received many donations.”
[04:13.10]Men Yu and her classmates organized this activity to raise money for a good cause,
[04:18.27]and in the process she formed strong friendships.
[04:21.43]“Coming to another country to study requires a big adjustment and it takes a while to fit in.
[04:27.65]I used to feel lonely and homesick at times,
[04:26.65]but doing this with the other students brought us really close and I made new friends from different backgrounds.
[04:32.71]I also feel more positive. In the often felt I could not handle the pressure of studying
[04:38.59]but this experience made realize how lucky I am to have enough food and chance to get education.
[04:45.43]It has given me the motivation to succeed.”
[04:48.38]Lu Hao, Lin Ying and Meng Yu are all helping to make other people’s lives better,
[04:53.84]and have found their own lives enriched as a consequence.
[04:57.08]By serving their local or national community,
[05:00.45]or an international project,
[05:02.31]youth volunteers become confident and mature.
[05:05.65]They also make great fiends,
[05:07.40]gain new skills and increase their chances of getting the job of their drams.
[05:12.42]Would you like to make a difference by becoming a volunteer?
[05:15.94]INTEGRATING SKILLS
[05:20.59]Reading
[05:21.74]DENIM JEANS
[05:23.21]It is the weekend!
[05:24.67]Time to have fun and relax,
[05:24.99]and time for young people to take off their school uniform and put on their favourite casual clothes.
[05:31.44]When teenagers have a free day, many of them like to wear a pair of denim jeans.
[05:36.59]Although the styles many change from year to year,
[05:39.62]jeans never go completely out of fashion.
[05:42.44]They are part of the lifestyle of many of today’s youth.
[05:45.50]The idea of blue trousers called jeans came from Europe,
[05:49.94]and the word “jeans” was first used to describe the blue clothes that sailors in Italy wore in the sixteenth century.
[05:57.65]However, the jeans of today are very much an American invention.
[06:02.03]They were created in the 1870s by a shopkeeper in San Francisco.
[06:06.76]His shop sold denim work trousers to men employed in heavy labour.
[06:11.10]The workers killed them because they were cheap and strong.
[06:14.55]They were also comfortable, especially after they had been washed a few times.
[06:18.80]The shop was successful, but it was about sixty years before people started to buy jeans for fashion as well as for work.
[06:26.75]In the 1930s many movies in the USA showed cowboys in Western America wearing jeans.
[06:33.46]Cowboys had a reputation for living wild and fee,
[06:37.27]and many young American men dreamed of a similar life, so they dressed to look like their film star heroes.
[06:43.83]In World War II these men became soldiers and were sent to fight in other countries.
[06:49.76]They took their favourite pair of jeans with them to wear in their time,
[06:52.03]and ,this is how American jeans were introduced to the world.
[06:55.69]After the war ended, American teenagers started to make denim jeans their own unique item of fashion.
[07:02.66]In the 1950s jeans and rock ‘n’ roll music became symbols of the new youth.
[07:08.12]Adolescents at that time enjoyed new and different things.
[07:11.93]They listened to the new type of music and they wanted to look different too.
[07:16.40]Many schools in the USA did not approve of students searing jeans to school and they forbade them.
[07:16.45]This made jeans even more popular in the evenings and at weekends.
[07:21.02]Since them jeans have been through many different changes in style.
[07:25.17]Some years they have wide legs; at other times narrow legs are the fashion.
[07:29.82]Tight fitting or loose; coloured, dark blue or light blue;
[07:33.98]decorated with holes, pain or flowers – jeans are constantly changing.
[07:38.91]In the 1990s a new material was added to the cotton to make it stretch and give an even tighter fit over the bottom and legs
[07:47.27]More recently it became popular to wear jeans that looked very old and companies started to produce new jeans that appeared to have been worn for several years and washed many times.
[07:57.33]In 1964, a writer for the magazine American Fabrics said, “Denim has become a symbol of the young,
[08:07.39]active, informal, American way of life.
[08:10.10]“In many respects these words are still true more than forty years later.
[08:14.96]Nowadays, active and informal young people all over the world wear denim jeans,
[08:20.11]and they are popular with older people who want to feel young too.
[08:24.52]In the UK for example,
[08:26.48]a recent survey found that 6 out of 10 men and 46% of women regularly wear jeans,
[08:34.03]but it is with young people that they continue to be most fashionable.
[08:38.29]Jeans are the first choice for 75% of those in the 15-19 age group,
[08:44.51]whereas less than half of the teenagers in the UK wear other types of casual trousers.
[08:50.46]Denim jeans are a symbol of the global teenager and it seems likely that they will remain part of international youth culture for many years to come |