Novatek volunteers accompanied the visually-impaired students on a trip to Taiping to experience loquat picking and indigo dyeing
Volunteer Service
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In the first volunteer event of this year, the Novatek volunteers accompanied visually the-impaired students to Taiping, Taichung to learn about the ecology of loquats and experience the picking process. Once you have visited a loquat garden, you will realize how cumbersome the process of planting loquats is. The process involves fruit thinning in the early stage, irrigation, and one-by-one bagging of the fruit. At the end, it is necessary to check through the small holes in the bag to see whether or not the fruit is ready for harvesting. During the packaging process, it is necessary to check the fruit one by one to eliminate the damaged or overripe fruits. We originally thought that harvesting 40 loquats for a group should be a simple and easy task. However, after working on the day with a temperature of 28℃, we finally experienced the hard work of the fruit farmers, and really appreciate the farmers for their hard work in harvesting loquats.
In addition to loquats, Toubianken of Taiping is also a place rich in animals and plants. With the direction of the guide, we entered the bat cave that is not open to the public in the trail. For the first time, we came into contact with the habitat of bats and felt hundreds of them just above us. Such experience is new for both the volunteers and the visually-impaired students! In addition, through the guided tour, we realized that the environment here is quite suitable for the growth of Manyflower Glorybower and Indigofera Tinctoria as raw materials for dye; therefore, Taiping is famous for its indigo dyeing industry. Indigo dyeing has many steps. Just adding one color requires repeating the dyeing process more than three times. Therefore, the visually-impaired students relied on the volunteers to guide them patiently one-on-one and finally completed their unique work.
Through this spring countryside mini-trip, the visually-impaired students and the volunteers visited and experienced Taiping’s local ecology and industries. This experience really surprised the visually-impaired students who live in Taichung: "We did not know that there is such a place in Taichung. We have never been to Taiping and did not know that there are mountains in Taiping!".
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