Miriam and Joan in Nanjing
Wow, what a wonderful thing!
Being able to attend the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games is something that we had never thought we would be able to do. ME to WE has had a great impact on our lives, and we were so excited to join them.
When we arrived at Shanghai airport, it was a surprise to us that China was a much larger country than ours. Being able to interact with many people we met on the train as we travelled to Nanjing was really fantastic. We also found people to be very friendly and welcoming, and were very happy when many people wanted to take photos with us everywhere we went.
Some people think that being a girl means you cannot do some of the things that men do. That’s why it was such an amazing surprise for us to see so many girls taking part in the Youth Olympic games! It really motivated us to go back home and work to continue changing people’s minds about what a girl can do in the world.
Socializing with people from different countries helps to provide solutions for current social issues, and we have seen this in our travels to China. Meeting students from Nanjing Foreign Language School was definitely a highlight for us. Getting the chance to interact with other students from other schools is what we encourage even in our own school, because meeting new people always helps us discover more about ourselves. When we interacted with students from other schools such as the Foreign Language School, we were able to get new ideas on how to approach and solve problems.
Visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing on the 22nd was a wonderful experience! We wish we’d had more time to spend there because there was so much more for us to learn and see. There were also many people there who wanted to take photos of us, but by that time we were used to it and liked that everyone was so friendly to us.
Getting to visit the National Centre of Performing Arts was also an experience that we really appreciated. It was uplifting to see that Chinese people still practice their traditional music forms and parts of their traditional way of life. We had a lot of fun trying to try to play some of their instruments.
Travelling abroad is an important thing in one’s life, because you get to learn more about different cultures, and also learn more about ourselves. You get to share new ideas with other people since ideas rule the world. Appreciating what you see, what you have, and what you think, is great and important in one’s life. Having access to travel to different cities in other countries helps one to discover more, get solutions to the problems he or she has, and offers solutions to the problems he or she sees in the city where you live.
Having a dream and focusing on your dream should always be encouraged. We say this because earlier in our lives we had a dream of visiting other countries. Although many people tried to reject our dream, we never gave up – instead we went ahead telling people we met about our dream. Knowing where you are going also brings a sense of direction in one’s life. Though we have faced a lot of challenges, we knew that by the end of our studies we would travel abroad and now our dream has been fulfilled!
We would like to dedicate our appreciation and special thanks to the International Olympic Committee for making it possible for us to attend the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games this year. We appreciate your work and we really say thank you again.
By Future Lawyers
Miriam Chebet (Kisaruni Girls, Kenya)
Joan Chepkoech (Oleleleshwa Girls, Kenya)
Find out more about ME to WE’s youth delegation on the ground at the the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics here. And check out our blog regularly at www.metowe.com/blog to read updates and follow @MetoWe and @CraigKielburger on Twitter and Instagram for the latest news and photos as they happen in Nanjing.
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