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Volunteers in HCM City instruct candidates how to finish their exam procedures. Photo H.Y |
I’ve met many volunteers in the “entrance exam aid” program in the past few days. I also tried to play a role as “a busy bee”, but I had to give up at once. Many of them have spent sleepless nights helping candidates coming to Binh Dinh.
Waiting for candidates at midnight
Coming to Quy Nhon city at midnight, students and their relatives still could feel secure for volunteers are always ready to help them.
In front of the gate of Binh Dinh College there are 10 volunteers. They only used some old newspapers to get some rest when feeling exhausted.
Initially, Nguyen Minh Duc, head of the group, assigned them to take turns working, but all of them have voluntarily worked together during past 10 days.
Sitting there for a few hours, I felt tired owing to dust, wind, and mosquitoes. “This is the eighth year we’ve worked as volunteers to help students,” Duc said. “We are determined to work all day and night for we don’t want to miss out any students.”
In an early morning, I came to another consultative venue at the crossroad of Tay Son-Nguyen Thai Hoc streets. They were really busy but less tired because some of them had been asked to take a rest one day before.
“Two third of our group are female students, but they’ve still spent all time outside,” said Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen, head of the group. “Being volunteers, they couldn’t wear face masks and sunglasses or miss out any candidates.”
Sometimes they took turns to receive students when the others were tired.
Volunteers working at Phu Tai T-junction was also under pressure from some motorbike taxi drivers who used to be ringleaders because candidates only wanted help from volunteers instead of them.
Sometimes volunteers were in a dilemma. A student’s relative, for instance, asked volunteers to call him a motorbike taxi driver and when they had called one, he phoned a taxi. Some thought they had to pay for free maps, so they refused when given maps of the city.
Sleepless nights in HCM City
When I phoned Nguyen Trung Huong, student of a HCM City-based college, he said many students from Binh Dinh decided to form a volunteer group to help Binh Dinh’s candidates taking exams in HCM City.
The group of 20 was then divided into three smaller groups coming to Mien Dong Coach Station to help candidates from Binh Dinh.
In the first session of the entrance exams, they’ve helped 120 candidates and persuaded two families to offer free accommodation to 40 students. Volunteers also shared their rooms with disadvantaged candidates.
What’s more, when students went to the exam venues, they took them to the venues by using their motorbikes or buses.
Each contributed not only their time and enthusiasm but VND300,000 to form the volunteer group. On the first day of the second session, they tried to save money by having a cheap vegetarian meal, but five of them had diarrhea due to stale rice.
They had to get some rest for one day before continue being volunteers in the coming time.
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