Lee and Deng won the first place in the competition based on their wonderful work at the aboriginal village of the Pangcah, as well as their intriguing documentary video.

To win the contest, the participants who are sent to an aboriginal village for a period of 15 to 25 days required to produce a video detailing the highlights of their stay, at the same time as carrying out community service.

Though winning the prize, Lee admitted that there is a limit to how much influence they have on the children. “In order to make a real impact on the children, we would need to stay in the tribe longer to make a difference,” Deng added.

By encouraging the youths of today to take up concrete actions to further know Taiwan, newfound expertise and capabilities are also introduced to the community; at the same time, the participants of the competition become valuable witnesses cum promoters of change, whom help the area to grow.

Lee and Deng heard about the activity from seniors in their department. “Later, we learned more about the project, and found that the scheme doesn't choose a specific topic for you to work towards,” Deng continues.

During their stay in the village, they held an after-school class for the many children there. “The foundation only gave us a basic introduction and brief instructions of we would be doing there,” says Lee. “So we had to figure out what to do by ourselves.”

“We decided to hold an after-school class after discussing with the instructor there, especially since we saw that there were so many children,” Deng adds.

Attendance at the after-school class consisted of ten-something pupils, with the number being varied each day. Most of the attendees were in their fifth and sixth grade. Some students would also bring their younger siblings, so there were also first and second graders.

“We found that in this area, due to the widespread belief that the 'good jobs' are only available in the city, the young people all go out to the city, leaving only the children and elderly at the tribal village,” Deng says. “Not only does this diminish the tribal population, it also leads to the loss of their culture.”

“Because of this, we hope to let them not only learn new things in this summer, but also better appreciate their culture in the ways that we can,” Lee continues. “We worked together with the instructor and planned the aims of the curriculum based on this goal, so incorporated lessons such as their traditional songs.”

They also gave an assignment which required the children to interview the senior citizens. In this way, they learnt the ability to communicate and express themselves, as well as design questions and organize results, whilst also having more contact with the elderly, something which is sorely lacking in today's society.

“Every child is different,” Deng points out, “so at the end of the day, we would sit down and discuss how to adjust the curriculum to meet the children's needs.”