http://s14/mw690/6b700bcctd16ff98505ad&690President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" TITLE="Two-Time President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" />
Elissa Li
it Paraguay 巴拉圭
http://s6/mw690/6b700bcctd16ff9a7dcb5&690President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" TITLE="Two-Time President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" />
Elissa Li
it Paraguay 巴拉圭
http://s16/mw690/6b700bcctd155a42f1eaf&690President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" TITLE="Two-Time President’s Award Winning Asian-American Does Volunteer&" />
Elissa
Li at Dominican Republic多米尼加共和国
记者/常 梦
文译/王立伟
On 2012, August 8th, I had the pleasure of meeting the dedicated Asian-American high-school honor student Elissa Li, introduced by esteemed Beijing TV announcer Li Huan. Besides visiting family, Elissa had one other important goal in mind in coming to Beijing, which was to do volunteer work at Tong Jou District’s Family Love Center for the mentally or physically disabled (Guan Ai Zhong Xin). She created a website with the purpose of furthering communication and exchange between peoples. Upon being acquainted with the situation at the Family Love Center, she resolved to share her experiences in China with her friends back in the United States through use of her blog.
I. A Good Girl From the Start
Elissa Li, born in Beijing in 1995, immigrated to the United States with her family when she was four years old. As a child, her dedication and love for learning were visible in her commitment to music and creative writing. She was accepted to New York’s Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented, I.S.239, a magnet school in Brooklyn. At Mark Twain she first discovered her love for cultural exchange and language. She is currently a student at New York’s elite specialized high school Stuyvesant High School, where she is a member of the debate team, school band, National Honor Society, and Spanish Honor Society.
II. The Beginning of Her Volunteer Efforts
Elissa began her volunteer efforts at 14. At 13 she went to her local library in hopes of acquiring a volunteer position there, but was denied, as only students of 14 and older are eligible as volunteers. Last summer, she went alone to a Paraguayan village for six weeks, where she lived in harsh conditions, but very happily. When mentioning this, a bright smile lights up her face. “When my mom tried to put on my traveling backpack, she almost fell flat on the floor,” she recounts, laughing at the memory. “I was the only Chinese volunteer there. My host family didn’t even know that China was a country. They thought it was another word for ‘Korea.’” She continues, “I think the best part was the cultural exchange. It was the part I was looking forward to most, too.”
III. Her Summer at the Family Love Center
“I think that part of what made me first look to volunteering was the way my family brought me up. So I really give all the credit to them. They always supported me, even when I pretty much brought up going to Paraguay on my own, out of the blue. They really encouraged that mindset.
“School’s been really intense, and a lot of my past summers were dedicated to volunteer efforts in the United States, so this ended up being my first summer in China in six years. We all planned the summer together, because there was a lot to do, and not much time to do it,” Elissa recalls. She first went to the Family Love Center on August 8th. It was a privately owned center, and all the children were disabled in some way, many mentally.
So how did she react? “I guess I was kind of worried I wouldn’t be able to communicate with them,” she says. “I just kind of stood there and looked lost for a while.”
At that moment, Wang Sen, a mentally disabled 22-year-old famous for indiscriminately calling female volunteers “beautiful,” ran up to her and greeted her with, “Hi, beautiful!”
“It was pretty easy after that,” Elissa comments. “I felt like part of the family.
“I donated my allowance to the care home and bought them food, towels, soap… It wasn’t a very big deal but it made them happy.
“There were these two girls, Zhao Bao Ping and Huang Ya Li, who really wanted to learn English, so I offered to teach them in my free time while I was in China. I wish I had more time. I didn’t want to just teach English for a short while and then leave. I want to go back.”
IV. Continuing In the US
All vacations eventually end. To continue her efforts, Elissa created a website. While working at the Family Love Center, she taught the children photography. She intends to put their photos on the website, in hopes of both letting American students understand the Family Love Center situation, and giving the children a feeling of self-accomplishment. Elissa intends to give them a camera before she goes, which they can use to take photos whenever they’d like. They intend to continue communicating via e-mail, and through this, Elissa hopes to help the children continue to grow.
V. Past, Present, and Future
I learned from Elissa’s mother that Elissa has won, over the course of her academic career, from elementary school to high school, over 80 awards in various categories. These include two President’s Awards, signed by President Bush and President Obama, various Spanish language awards, and debate awards.
She hopes to go to even more countries, become acquainted with more cultures, and through this, be able to offer her services as a volunteer to more people.
Elissa’s website: http://giftofpictures.wordpress.com/
Elissa’s Chinese website: http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/2921652245
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