时间：2022-09-16 03:39:43
今年是香港回归十周年。作为庆祝活动之一，第12届“21世纪•联想杯”全国英语演讲比赛选在香港中文大学的邵逸夫堂举行，并于3月底圆满结束。本期“口语角”栏目选登了本届比赛亚军―中国传媒大学钟石同学的命题演讲。主修英语播音主持的他演讲时气定神闲，应对自如，娓娓道来。我们就来一睹他的风采吧！（想了解比赛详情的同学可以点击以下网址：edu.省略/contest/ ）
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!
I’m from Sichuan Province, which is also the place pandas come from. Last summer, I volunteered to be a tour guide for a group of kids from a rural elementary school, who had been invited by the 1)Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center to see the pandas. Halfway through our trip, a little boy told me he thought the pandas?home looked a bit dirty and asked whether he could clean their 2)enclosures. I was surprised that this boy, who was so desperately in need of help himself, was thinking of helping the giant pandas! I had volunteered to offer him my time and knowledge, and he had volunteered to provide the pandas with a feeling of human warmth. Though different in form, both types of help meant something to the respective receivers.
Many people have an outdated 3)perception of volunteer work, 4)associating it with the 19th century ideal of 5)charitable deeds, done by the haves for the have-nots. However, offering help today does not require that one has money, knowledge or materials, and therefore the right to perform volunteer work is not 6)restricted to people who are able to give these things to others, but belongs to anyone who can benefit society in moral, spiritual and emotional ways that money alone cannot buy. In other words, anyone can volunteer, as long as they are willing to help.
Furthermore, having a volunteering spirit gives one the ability to do a good deed at any time. Last year, CCTV, awarded the ?)2006 China Prize for People Who Move China?to a countryside woman who, for 30 years, has been taking care of five senior citizens, with whom she has no blood ties. Public recognition was not the driving force behind her years of tireless
work. Neither had any special event in her life pushed her to serve these people. The volunteering spirit she 8)manifested was a natural flow of affection toward people in need, and was reflected in every tiny thing she had done for each of these five elderly people over the years.
Her example teaches us that the 9)essence and power of the volunteer spirit is not only in offering help to anyone, but also in doing so whenever, and indeed, wherever it is needed. In practical terms, this means that we do not have to wait until the Tree-Planting Day to plant a tree for the betterment of environment. Likewise, we don’t have to wait until the 10)tsunami hits the headlines to help poor people living in South Asia; and we do not have to wait until the Olympic Games begin to show our 11)hospitality to our foreign visitors.
Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”Ladies and gentlemen, I hope every one of you earns a wonderful living and gets plenty; but I hope even more that all of us, by giving people in need part of whatever we’re blessed with, can lead a fulfilling life we will never regret having lived.
That’s all for my speech. Thank you.
女士们先生们，早上好！
我来自四川省，这个省份同时也是大熊猫的故乡。去年夏天，一群来自一所农村小学的孩子受成都大熊猫繁育中心邀请参观大熊猫，我为他们当志愿导游。在我们的参观途中，一个小男孩告诉我，他觉得大熊猫的屋子看起来有点脏，问我他能否清扫它们的笼子。这位极需别人帮助的男孩脑子里想的是帮助大熊猫，对此我感到很惊讶。我无偿为他贡献我的时间和知识，而他也自愿给予大熊猫人类的温情。虽然方式不同，但两种帮助对于各自的受益者来说都意义非凡。
很多人对志愿者工作有一个陈旧的观念，即把这种工作和19世纪典型的慈善活动联系起来，认为这是富人帮助穷人的行为。但是现在，给人提供帮助并不需要有钱、有知识或者有物质资源，因此进行志愿者工作的权利并不局限于那些能够为别人提供物质帮助的人，而属于任何在道德、精神和情感方面让社会获益的人，而这些益处是金钱买不到的。换言之，只要愿意提供帮助的人都可以参与志愿活动。
此外，怀有一种志愿服务精神让人在任何时候都能力行善举。去年，中央电视台将“2006年感动中国人物”奖颁发给了一位农村妇女。三十年来，她坚持照顾五位和她没有任何血缘关系的老人。外界的赞誉并不是她几十年不畏劳累工作的动力，在她的生活中也没有任何特殊的事件促使她照顾这些老人。她体现的这种志愿服务精神是一种对有需要的人们在情感上的自然流露。这种精神体现在她几十年来为这五位老人所做的每一件小事上。
她的事迹让我们明白到志愿服务精神的真谛和力量并不只是向任何人提供帮助，也在于无论何时，甚至无论何处，只要有需要就有行动。实际上，这意味着我们不需要等到植树节才为了改善环境种下一棵树。同样，我们不必一定要等到海啸成为头条新闻才去帮助生活在南亚的穷人。我们也没必要等到奥运会开幕才向外国游客展现我们的热情好客。
温斯顿•邱吉尔曾说：“我们通过获取来维持生计，通过给予升华人生。”女士们先生们，我希望你们中的每一位都有一份不错的生计，并且收入不菲。但我更加希望我们所有人能将我们所拥有的东西给予那些需要的人，并拥有一个我们绝对不会后悔的充实人生。
我的演讲完了，谢谢。