Qualities of a good global citizen.

Global citizen is a new and popular phrase that is not only using among the youth in Vietnam but the youth in all over the world as well. Using this phrase quite often, but many of us still do not understand exactly about global citizen. Who are they? Of course we can answer directly that global citizen are people who live, study or work in many countries; they can speak different languages ,and have lots of nationalities. However, Are these enough to build a good global citizen? In fact, these are just the need factor not the enough one. Base on the attitude towards oneself and society we need three qualities _self fulfillment, empathy, awareness _to become a good global citizen.

The first quality is the self-fulfillment. We can understand this quality as the willingness to improve ourselves. It means a global citizen always try to strengthen his weakness; to be more dynamic, knowledgeable, confident; actively take part in social activities; creatively working with new ideas; joining in some skill clubs or social campaign; confide in ourselves and dare to talk what we think. These days, more and more improvement book are published; the proportion of people take part in social club is rising. They are strong evidences show that the youth now concern much about self-fulfillment. We should put effort to improve our weakness. As Asian people, we have to pass over the destiny, the shyness that are settled in our mind for a long time. To do that we can live openly with others to absorb new ideas, participate with them to improve cooperating skills. We need to define our goals and try to reach them. Indeed, many young people can do it. Ky Anh, Lam and Trieu_three students created the Chat Ola_ is a symbolic example. They formed the idea of application software from a common demand that is chatting freely with the lowest fee. This demand became their motivation, and the result takes time, but if we do, our house will stay long with the time.

Another quality of a good global citizen is the empathy. Empathy is our attitude towards people’s sorrow and depression; the feeling that other’s pain is like ours. Through the mass media, we know that every day more and more people have to face with the hunger; millions died of AIDS; uprisings occur and lead people to the homeless state… If we feel sorry to see these sorrows, that means we have possess the empathy. In our country, some young students volunteer to bring knowledge to children in highlands, others spend their free time to look after victims of Agent Orange or play with children in orphan homes. They are worthy of being a global citizen. It means not only these works are worth, but any actions no matter how they are if we do with all our empathy are all worth. In brief, global citizens are empathetic with other’s pain and try to release it.

Finally yet importantly, it is awareness. How can we understand about the awareness? Awareness is something relate to our moral. It is the aware of what is right, and what is wrong; what we need to do, and what we should not do. From this awareness, we can see our responsibilities and our duties not only for ourselves but also for the world. Being a person in this world, we have to pay attention to global problems like the pollution, shorted of fresh water, climate changed…, and have attitude about them. A person who is knowledgeable, good at foreign languages, goes to many countries is not a global citizen if he lives in this world but do not care about the world just lives for himself. On contrary, a 70-year-old man can be a global citizen though he cannot speak any English words, never goes out of his village because he and others in the Green Campaign join hand to grow trees .Although the work is very small, it shows his awareness about his duty to solve a global problem.

To become a good global citizen, we need many factors, but viewing on the side of the attitude, the self-fulfillment, the empathy, the awareness are three main qualities we must archive. Being the future of the society, we should join hand with the youth in all over the world to make our planet better and better.