ESG News

Novatek outdoor educational activities, often so highly anticipated by visually impaired students, were suspended for a semester due to the pandemic. But in the new semester, with the pandemic starting to ease, COVID restrictions were finally lifted. For the first time this year, Novatek volunteers accompanied visually impaired students to experience a day of local agricultural activities in Baoshan, Hsinchu.

Olives and brown sugar are both local characteristic agricultural products of Baoshan Township. In order to help the visually impaired students get closer to the land and learn about the friendly farming environment promoted by Baoshan Township, Novatek volunteers accompanied the students to the olive grove in the morning. There, together, they learned how to pick olives. The students brandished long bamboo poles to hit the olive tree branches, experiencing the olive rain that formed from the falling of olives. Fresh olives were harvested, sorted, and boiled to prepare to make candied olives. The volunteers helped the students smash the olives with a mallet, and then put the olives into a glass jar with sugar for curing. Four days later, they would be able to enjoy the sour-sweet taste of the finished candied olives.

In the afternoon, with a guide's explanations, the students learned how the local residents of Baoshan rediscovered the traditional brown sugar industry through beginning again to cultivate sugarcane and through encouraging environmentally-friendly farming. During the tour, the students experienced how sugarcane turns into brown sugar through the process of juicing and boiling. Local hand-made brown sugar was even prepared for the volunteers and the students, to make brown sugar buns with special designs. When the freshly-baked brown sugar steamed buns were ready to serve, the students couldn't wait to taste their own products. When they bit into the steamed buns, the melted brown sugar immediately gushed out, giving the students a series of surprises. Everyone who had a chance to try the hand-made brown sugar steamed buns gave them a strong thumbs-up!

During this long-awaited volunteering activity, Novatek volunteers accompanied the students from the Taichung School for the Visually Impaired and visually impaired students from the Changhua area to experience a one-day local exploration and educational event. Through activities such as olive harvesting and curing, combined with seasonal ingredients, the process of “from the farm to the table” was presented, guiding the students to experience farming activities that are both fun and educational.