(Military News Agency reporter, Chou Li-Xing, Taipei, Jan 10th) The military concern and compassion for the people is second to none while this spirit of “Military Care for Civilians and Civilian Respect for Military” is cultivated from the military academies.

(Military News Agency reporter, Chou Li-Xing, Taipei, Jan 10th) The military concern and compassion for the people is second to none while this spirit of “Military Care for Civilians and Civilian Respect for Military” is cultivated from the military academies.

Liu Xi-Hao and Lin Kai-Xin, senior students in the Department of Journalism, Fu Hsing Kang College, National Defense University, participated in the 7th “Click Taiwan” Competition during the summer vacation last year. Their submission was a documentary edited from the videos filmed during their volunteer travels. After six months of online voting, they were awarded the “Internet Popularity” Second Prize Award and the “Service Spirit” Award which is also a recognition and encouragement of their efforts.

Organized by the Chunghwa Telecom Foundation, the “Click Taiwan” competition aims to encourage college youths to record and perform voluntary services. Besides the volunteer work, the films will also be able to capture the images of the lifestyles of rural villages, allowing more people to understand the community, discover the community needs and stimulate more volunteers to offer their services so as to ensure the volunteer services will not be disrupted.

Competing alongside other outstanding teams from 23 colleges and 25 faculties, the duo, Liu Xi-Hao and Lin Kai-Xin, have won the favor of the organizers with their exceptional performance. Liu Xi-Hao had previously won the first prize in the Documentary Competition organized by the Taipei Grateful Association while Lin Kai-Xin had produced many feature reports on community stories and was in turn reported on news broadcast. Making full use of their talents, the two combined their rich learning experiences to achieve success in the competition. Their participation also marked the first participation by students from military academies.

Liu Xi-Hao and Lin Kai-Xin chose Lu-Shang Church in Changhua County as their destination for their summer travel, and in the 15 days of the journey, they worked together with local volunteers to assist the priests and missionaries in offering afterschool remedial sessions, elderly concern and healthcare, and old house reconstruction in the hopes that their efforts will help to reduce the “digital gap”. Their interactions with the community and children, as well as the local culture were faithfully recorded in the documentary to offer the audience a new perspective and experience.

Liu Xi-Hao expressed that through this activity, they have deeply felt that volunteer service is a long-term tug-of-war in which volunteers must contribute their efforts in a series of relays while each relay will bring minor changes that may be accumulated one day to offer a new situation. On this journey, they have finally understood the significance of the “Volunteer Relay Spirit” and hopefully, the documentary will attract more contribution from volunteers.

Lin Kai-Xin said that although their volunteer service in the short period of 2 weeks will not be able to eliminate the digital gap, the airing of the documentary will help the missionaries attract more volunteers and local people representatives may also use the documentary as educational material for pre-volunteer training. Their efforts should bring about some influences and changes and their hard work will not be wasted.