Volunteering for Evergreen Education Foundation has given me
the opportunity to leverage my life’s work to help others get opportunities
they might not otherwise have.
My bus leaves 8am sharp from my hotel in Zhuhai China
on a one hour journey to our manufacturing partner’s factory campus, which
could be described as a small city. I am
a typical American electronics engineer on my way to building the worlds’ most
advanced products; however I am more fascinated looking out the bus window as
it passes thousands of people walking to work, and small roadside stands trying
to sell them breakfast. As we roll into the rural countryside I observe the
farmers already working their fields or moving their goods in ox carts. This is
China , the people, not the China we hear
about in the news. As a 3rd generation Chinese American, my mind
drifts off wondering if my ancestors made a different choice a hundred years
ago, would I be another uncountable person outside of my bus window?
Because my ancestors persevered to make a home in a new
country of opportunity, I have been fortunate to be well educated and well
employed. As I mentioned I have had the opportunity to work on high
technology’s greatest consumer products. Although it has led me to contemplate:
Is this all there is? How do I help people? How do I make a better world? My
answer to those questions came when I joined my fellow high tech professional,
Michael Wong, who founded the Village Children’s Fund. We raised funds for
small rural school construction in remote parts of Guizhou Province
My bus horn honks as it makes it way through hundreds of
factory workers during a shift change. I wonder which ones should be riding in
the bus with me. Maybe someday a poor rural student will grow up to wonder the
same thoughts.
Author Rodney Amen is the
volunteer Science Officer and Board of Directors member for Evergreen Education
Foundation.
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