I am Florent and volunteering in FSL India Chennai Facility as a Long Term Volunteer. I got an opportunity to participate in 14th Happy Move Camp 2015 held between 25th January to 5th February 2015 – a CSR initiative between FSL India, Better World Organisation – South Korea and Hyundai Motor Company – South Korea & Hyundai  The camp was conducted in 5 rural villages near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. FSL India staff, around 100 Korean volunteers and 30 Indian volunteers have entered the everyday life of Indian children and villagers in order to renovate schools, build individual houses and individual toilets, teach and play with kids and get to know each other and their own culture.

During almost two weeks a bridge was being built between these two friendly countries in order to achieve one goal: to build a better future. One village, one team, one team – three groups, rotating everyday. One for school renovation, one for individual toilets and local house construction and one for children education.

As a long term volunteer with Fsl India, I had the opportunity to witness everyday the process and its efficiency on all aspects mentioned earlier. The two villages appearing in this article are Amarambedu and Naduvirapattu: small but fast developing villages with high poverty rate. Even if the government put some money in the local school it really needed to be renovated. Old damaged walls getting refreshed with happy colours and colorfull drawings, new water tanks installed, protection wall built to separate school from the main road and thus prevent child accidents, kitchen garden built to teach kids wisely, are some meaningfull actions undertaken by HMC. On an educative level, HMC is also a real success. Combining art classes with more educational and recreative ones is a good way to have children learning in a happy and eficient way. Language barrier is not a problem during an HMC. Indian workers easily manage to express their needs and Indian volunteers are here to fill the language gap when needed. Good organisation and devotion together always produce goods results. Fsl India coordinators for each village made a great job and all the objectives were achieved during the camp. Good knowledge and prior sharp analysis of local issues in cooperation with local officials made it easier to achieve goals.

I was really eager to see HMC impact after those two weeks. And I must say I was not disappointed at all. Watching twinkles in the children and volunteers eyes was so nice to witness that the impact went far beyond only renovation and building. The positive energy spreading from everyone is an amazing feeling they will never forget.

The tears of the last day were definitly tears of joy and friendship rather that only sadness ones. Children will remember everyday their experience with the volunteers thanks to the nice paintings and works, like permanent fingerprints of this collaborative friendship. Families who benefited from the construction of a new house will gain in day to day confort mostly during mansoon season and families elected for individual toilet building are on the path to better hygienic issues comprehension. HMC put seeds in the ground, and it is up to indian people now to harvest it. I am sure they will…