"We built a cooking school in Vietnam”
NTU students grow in empathy and character as they help teach and build for less privileged youth in overseas service trips
by Tan Zi Jie
He’d spent two weeks in the small town of Phong Thanh with over 20 Civil Engineering students – building brick walls under the sun, running science workshops for kids, and sharing meals with villagers.
“He told me he felt invisible back in Singapore,” recalls fellow student Mark Tham. “Like if he disappeared, no one would notice.”
“But here, getting to laugh, work and live with our team and the friendly Vietnamese youth, he finally felt like he belonged. That’s what made saying goodbye so hard.”
More than a school trip
Mark and his teammates were part of NTU’s overseas community service programme – a life-changing initiative that sends students to less developed areas to build, teach, and live alongside local villagers.
They run fun workshops to teach the local kids, aged eight to 14, science through gliders, elastic cars and mini experiments.
In Phong Thanh, one in five residents live in poverty. Many kids leave school early to help their families.
“So we hoped to to do more than teach,” says Mark. “We wanted to spark something – a love for learning, a belief that their future could be big.”
And that spark lit something in the volunteers too.
“The trip felt unreal,” Mark (in red, in first row below) adds.
"There were more than 20 of us from NTU Civil Engineering. Most of us didn’t know each other before. But we bonded like family. It was as if we were puzzle pieces that had always belonged together.”
Wake-up calls and full hearts
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (MAE) student Reina Lee still remembers one home visit in the village.
She met a mother whose husband had been injured and whose older children had to quit school to support the family.
“She said she didn’t even dare to dream of a better future for her kids,” Reina shares.
“That really shook me. I realised I’d been living life asleep, not even aware of how lucky I am.”
Since then, she’s tried to live more consciously – being grateful for the little things, like her parents’ support or simply having the chance to go to university.
Reina and her teammate Josiah Lau returned the following year with another 20 MAE students – and found the same kids running up to greet them, excitedly talking about the planes they’d made together in the previous year’s aerodynamics workshop.
Many friendships forged in Vietnam are still going strong. NTU students and the Vietnamese youth continue to swap messages on Instagram and TikTok, sending each other birthday wishes and life updates.
It’s more than a project. It’s people. It’s connection.
– Josiah
A village child wearing “glasses” made with a 3D printing pen from NTU’s Mecatron, a student-led robotics club.
From bricks to breakthroughs
The trip isn’t just about bonding. It’s also about building – in every sense of the word.
Last year, Reina’s teammate Husain Maimoon helped lay the foundations of a two-storey training kitchen in the village.
Downstairs: a kitchen. Upstairs: a mock restaurant. The idea? To equip locals with hospitality skills and boost their chances of landing better jobs.
When Husain returned a few months later, he saw Singaporean volunteers teaching locals to cook on the very stoves his team had installed.
“It was a full-circle moment,” he says. “The work we did is helping lives in real time.”
There’s now a wall in the centre etched with the names of every volunteer who helped build it – both local and Singaporean. Husain said he felt touched when he spotted familiar names among the hundreds.
Not just engineering – empowerment
Mark also worked on that same building, just weeks after Husain’s team had left.
Today, Mark is interning at an MRT construction site in Singapore – a high-tech world of machines and precision. But in Phong Thanh, construction was all sweat and heart.
“There were no cement trucks. We mixed everything with shovels,” he says. “It was hot, heavy work, but it brought us closer.”
The NTU team prepared a safety plan before arriving – but on the ground, they quickly saw that local builders had their own ways, often more relaxed.
Instead of trying to change things, they chose to learn.
“We were taught not to go in thinking we should ‘fix’ how they do things,” Mark shares. “We were there to observe, understand and work together.”
“Engineering isn’t just about following blueprints. It’s about building lives. Even if you start small, with what little you have, you can still create something that helps people live better.”
He adds: “That’s the real foundation for lasting change.”
“Our wire game sparked his love for engineering”
“If I get the chance, I want to study engineering one day,” says Võ Nhật Anh – or Blue (right in photo), as his friends call him.
He’s 18, lives in the quiet Vietnamese village of Phong Thanh, and still remembers the exact moment that sparked his dream: a simple wire, a buzzer and a science workshop led by NTU students.
Last June, Blue volunteered to translate for the NTU-run science workshops for younger kids at his hometown’s library, where a local non-profit runs programmes he’s been attending for years. He speaks a little English, and he was eager to be part of the action.
One afternoon, NTU student Josiah Lau (left in photo) and his team were teaching the children how electricity flows by building a wire buzzer game – a hands-on activity involving wires, a battery and a buzzer that rings when the circuit is completed.
Blue was instantly hooked. “I saw his eyes light up,” recalls Josiah.
After the workshop ended, Josiah handed Blue some spare wires, bulbs and a siren to take home.
Blue wasted no time. He used them to build a wooden house and modify remote control cars.
“I’ll never forget that day,” Blue says. “The circuitry game gave me many fun ideas to share with my brother.”
Though he’s currently on a non-science track in pre-university and plans to become a physical education teacher, his dream of becoming an engineer hasn’t faded.
He’s also started a small YouTube channel to document his daily village and school life.
“Maybe one day I’ll get to study mechanical engineering,” he says. “Maybe even at NTU.”
Get involved, be inspired
NTU students have always had a heart for the community. In the new academic year, service learning will be introduced as a course for all undergraduates.
“We’ve heard many inspiring stories of NTU students and alumni going out of their way to lend a hand to others in less privileged situations. And they have all said how these interactions have changed their perspectives and helped them grow,” says Prof Gan Chee Lip, Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education).
To deepen this spirit of service, NTU is launching a new credit-bearing undergraduate course series titled Care, Serve and Learn. Students can select from several courses within the series, depending on their interests.
One of these courses is Uplift@NTU, where students will support children and youth from disadvantaged backgrounds through tutoring and mentoring.
“We want students to contribute meaningfully to society, starting with families in need,” Prof Gan explains.
This story was published in the Mar-Apr 2025 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
