In January 2020, our team of 18 SUTD students travelled to a village in Tra Vinh Province, Vietnam for our two week long Youth Expedition Project.

The Radiate360 Family

Everyday we split our team into 3 groups, one large group to work on the farm, a smaller groups to teach the children at the local school and the last group to stay at our accommodation to help prepare the meals for the day.

We don’t always wear hats during breakfast

After our team breakfast, it takes a short bus ride and a nice stroll to get to the farm. We worked on a water sprinkler system, designing the layout of the plumbing and taking into consideration the advice from the locals on where they wished to grow different crops. We also helped to build a road around the farm so it would be safer for children to travel on their bicycles during the raining seasons.

Pre-work photos always look better

Our favorite pile of rocks!

Laying out the pipes for our sprinkler system

In the school, we taught science and healthcare concepts to the children, we also got to play different local games with them during their breaks.

Teaching and learning from our new friends!

We organized a HUGE carnival for the whole school and everyone was invited. We sang songs, competed in different games, and danced…a lot, there was a lot of dancing (mostly to TikTok and Kpop songs) On our “off” days we got to go to different farms and learn about ants, eat coconuts (including the elusive special coconut), play with ducklings, plant flowers, and learn about the Vietnamese culture.

One of the carnival games we organized

We played ‘chapteh’ with the top local team everyday after school and work

Every night we would have our dinner as a team, do our laundry, play cards or ‘chapteh’, take beautiful photos of each other and overly edit them, talk about life and reflect on the day’s events. We would watch the beautiful sunsets together in a little house on the banks of the Mekong river, our bodies aching from the hours of work, but hearts full from the warmth of the locals who opened our eyes to a new culture and welcomed us with open arms.

We caught big fish with our bare hands! Yes, it is as hard as you think it is

Nice long walks on the streets of the village

We bonded with the locals and within our own team, learning about each other, having shared experiences, making memories and just really having fun. Thank you for the experience Vietnam, it was truly amazing.

Thanks everyone, much love