Friday, February 23, 2007
ct session today was pretty packed. content wise. and i must say that some of the things that were brought up were pretty thought provoking. saw many of you nodding... but not in agreement i suppose. ha :)
anyway, this really brings back memories!
when i was in secondary school, there was compulsory CIP (as is the case today) and basically, we went to various children's/old folks' homes. the thing about these visits is that we only went to each home once. it was pretty much touch and go. my deepest memory was a children's home we visited. we put up a skit for the children and we had a whale of a time preparing for it. it was the story of the "3 little pigs", and all of us who acted were really camping it up and enjoying the process. i guess for us then, it's probably another one of those "official" events which gave us a legitimate excuse to just fool around... the children enjoyed it of course and it bonded us as a class.
in jc, i joined interact club in my second year. i remember that we went to this hospice to visit the sickly elderly. we had programme lined up for them and it was basically to sing chinese oldies like "yue liang dai biao wo de xin". so we went, a whole busload of us, waiting to execute the activities we had planned, like the bright-eyed task driven perfect over-achievers that we were. when we began singing the songs we had prepared (preparations meaning last minute revision on the bus-ride to the place), one of the residents told us to stop singing. we were pretty shocked because, like hello? do we sound that bad? are the windows breaking? but more so because, well, we knew at the bottom of our hearts that we didn't have anything else planned... and worse of all, most of us could not speak dialect. in terms of the ability to hold a decent conversation, many of us were inadequate. i can speak hakka but most elderly understand only teochew or hokkien, of which i speak nor even understand neither. upon hindsight, it must be really annoying for the people at the hospice (or any other homes for that matter) to have different groups of students swarm in on them every other day, insisting on singing the same old songs, with the same old uncertainty. the awkward silences. never moving beyond "have you eaten". never seeing the same face again. what is the point of such visits? really. who are we helping? are we merely assuaging our conscience? telling ourselves that, hey, i am a good person. i do cip...?
in university, i joined mentoring. basically we had secondary school students as our mentees, and we were supposed to help them in their studies and to counsel them. it was a weekly affair for a year. through this, i formed fast friends with the mentors assigned to the same school. after my year of mentoring ended, the bunch of us still helped out with planning the programme for year-end camps for a few more years. through the constant interaction with these youths, i have learnt patience and to never give up. when you really care for someone, your actions will naturally speak of this concern. the hope that the person will fulfill his/her potential, not for anyone/anything, but solely for him/herself. because he/she is capable of it. it is important to constantly care becaue, i believe, when you start to care less, one tends to become careless with one's words and actions...
an amazing thing (cliched as it is) about helping others is that in the end, you are the one who benefits the most. not in a condescending oh-my-gawd-i'm-helping-the-less-fortunate-i-should-be-so-glad-i'm-not-them way, but in the way that because of the interaction, you see yourself more clearly, you see others more clearly, you learn about life around you, beyond you...
i'm sure many among you have actively volunteered at some point in your life. so, keep up the good work! :) those who are interested should sign up for the citibank-ymca youths 4 causes. if not, you can always be a part of the various activities cip has lined up for the school :)
hope everyone has a good weekend! rest well and see you on monday! :)
posted by iliep at 10:17 PM
