Testimonials From Our Individual Volunteers

Testimonials From Our Individual Our Volunteers

[Long Term Volunteers]

Hin-Sing Yuen

[Individual Volunteers
from our Light On
Your Path Journey]

From the Trip in
Feb 2020

From the Trip in
December 2016

From the Trip in
October 2016

Ellen Chan

Jane Chan

Leonard Ho

From the Trip in
May 2016

Rosa Yeung

Shirley Yeung

From the Trip in
March 2016

Becca Orf

Leeon Li

From the Trip in
Feb 2016

Carina Chan

Hazel Chow

Molly Lam

[Long Term Volunteers]
Hin-Sing Yuen

Kindness and Happiness - Reflections of Sing, Volunteer Translator of Light On

Selina and I playing with Nepali children (taken in 2016)

I am a volunteer translator of Light On Charity. In 2016, when I was a second-year university student, I participated the Light On Your Path Journey and went to Nepal for the first time. (What I wrote four years ago: https://lighton.org.hk/join-us.html). After these four years, I still believe that it's just our natural tendency to want 'to help people' – only with some new understanding on what it means ‘to help people’, and it all starts from the fact that nature makes us individuals.

The word 'individual' comes from the Latin word 'individuum', which literally means 'an indivisible thing'. It implies that although an individual is indivisible internally, we can divide between individuals and each individual is independent. As individuals, we only have access to our subjective experience, and naturally we care more for ourselves, as unlike others' feeling, our joy and pain are our immediate. The possibility of going beyond our subjective experience was a question Zhuagzi was asked, 'You're not the fish. How do you understand its joy?' After more than a thousand years, the modern person still asks, 'You're not me. How do you understand my suffering?' Caring for ourselves doesn’t mean we are more ego-centric than others. We have no choice but nature makes us the center of our own universe, and so I'd like to share my thoughts starting from the center of my universe – my personal experience.

In our volunteer group in 2016, there was a Nepalese local partner who didn't speak Cantonese and a Hong Kong volunteer who didn't understand English. I was asked to be an interpreter for the group, and I found it quite a fun experience. Two years later, Pink (the founder of Light On) sent me a message one day and asked whether I could translate some feedback written by participants of the Light On Your Path Journey. I thought to myself, 'This seems to be a fun thing to do!'

I agreed to translate it, and now I've already been translating for Light On as a volunteer for almost two years, including the latest annual report (2018 - 2019). Last year, I also spent two months volunteering at Edventure Nepal Children's Home and became a fundraiser for the children.

You

Pink and I (taken in 2016)

To be honest, I used to doubt my value: as a mediocre young man like me, how can I contribute to the disadvantaged people? I don't have a car, I don't have an apartment, and I don’t have a well-paid job. Having been volunteering as a translator, I've realized that my value is not defined by how much money I can give, but I see my value in connecting with you.

Although Light On is based in Hong Kong, we have a group of supporters speaking different languages. Without translation work, Light On couldn’t have reached so many people. The documents I translate include volunteer feedback, media reports, and annual reports. They are records of kind actions and happy experience. Pink asks me to translate the original records into another language (either from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese), in order to spread these wonderful records to more people. After I've translated something, my work is forwarded to other collaborators including designers, programmers, and administrators. Finally, the work is presented before you, the reader.

It is in this context you and I are connected. You and I are not isolated individuals, but we are connected in this greater web, where I'm not just a mediocre writer and translator, and you're not a mere reader. My words become part of your world, and your reading brings meaning to my writing. In this entire process, you and I are a part of Light On, a network promoting love and happiness.

We - Light On

At Edventure Nepal Children's Home (taken in 2016)

My work makes comprehensible the records of Light On to speakers of different languages. I see every word I translate not as an arbitrary symbol, but a piece of puzzle in a grand and beautiful picture. I examine carefully the records of every project and event, and see how every dollar we raise is put into good use.

Material donation is of course important, but I’d say the value of Light On does not lie in how much money it possesses or raises, but in how many people it touches and connects. In this capitalist society, we tend to think of value in terms of money. In view of this, Light On strives to make its finance as transparent as possible, to ensure the donators that the money has been well spent. But what Light On does is beyond satisfying people's material needs. Supporters of Light On believe in the importance of mental well-being, and we organize a variety of fund-raising activities which at the same time hope to educate the participants to find their own path towards happiness. The Light On Your Path Journey, for example, aims not only at raising money for the Nepalese villagers living in mountain area, but also is an enlightening experience for volunteer participants.

For Light On, love and happiness are the source and the goal, and money is just a means. Light On offers love and happiness to everyone, and the money raised in the meantime is just a means to generate more love and happiness. Love and happiness are immediate experience which require no further justification. Through connecting us through love and happiness, Light On acquires its meaning, or to put it simply: We are Light On.

All – Beyond Light On

Edventure Nepal Children's Home, Jenny and I in 2019

Okay. We are Light On, and we care for ourselves. But why do I need to help people I don't know? Evolution dictates that we tend to be more concerned with people who are close to us. We care for ourselves, our family and friends, our city and our nation. We know this is necessary for our survival and well-being, but why should I care about people I don't know? I'd reply to this with an old saying, 'Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.'

We draw the lines between 'I' and 'you', between 'we' and 'they', because by doing so we can form our identity and protect ourselves from foreign harm. We desire to keep things in control, and we want to be independent. We fear to depend on external conditions, because we know they are unstable, and we suffer when they are no longer as we want them to be. We want to survive on our own, without relying on anybody, because by doing so we think we can keep our life in control. Only people who trust another person can break the boundary between 'I' and 'you' to form a 'we', and after a 'we' is formed, there arises a new distinction between 'we' and 'they'. In theory, drawing these lines protect us from suffering from interpersonal relationships. But in reality, how sustainable is this kind of happiness?

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is perhaps this: 'I can be totally happy on my own.' Humans are social animals. Deeply inside us abides the longing for satisfying social relationships. But as we fear to be rejected and abandoned, we attempt to keep a distance from others. This constant struggle between longing for deep connections and protecting ourselves drive our mind in incessant motion. Our world oscillates between hope and disappointment, excitement and fear, joy and pain.

To escape from this emotional turmoil, what we can do is to transcend the distinction between 'you' and 'I', between 'we' and 'they' - seeing humanity as one. We know that all people desire happiness and avoid suffering. You and I are individuals who will never know how exactly the other is feeling, but empathy enables us to at least glimpse at the subjective world of others. We know all of us long for being valued. All of us seek for a reason of existence. All of us need a position in the universe. It is in seeing this common humanity we break the boundary between 'I' and 'you', 'we' and 'they'. It is this common longing and suffering that brings us together, and it is this common hope and happiness that we celebrate.

Having realized this, we will come to know that generous actions are not symbolic behavior demonstrating one's moral or material superiority, but natural behavior of people who see the interdependency of all. We feel pain when others suffer and joy when others flourish. Our kind actions root from our deepest desire to be connected to the world, in a real and direct sense, but not merely through others' approval. I believe, the miserable and lonely ones possess the most powerful seed of kindness, because they understand the meaning of suffering. Undeniably, this feeling of lack and emptiness resides in every one of us, but if we see how all is connected, we transform this weakness into our greatest strength. We become embodiments of love and meaning. We become Light On. We transcend 'we' and 'they'. We become all.

Light On is currently raising money to help save Nepali kids from dangerous school journeys. (For more information, please see: https://chuffed.org/project/sanjapuhostel)