I do not have any experience doing volunteeer work overseas. My first experience in volunteering was 17 years ago with my high school’s community project. My class was sent to clean the tiny apartments of a group of old folks who were either abandoned by their family or who never had any in the first place. I don’t remember much from it except the joy and sparkle in the eyes of some grannies (some were quite cranky too!).
My next experience was with some friends in tutoring the children of Chen Su Lan Children’s Home, a Christian Charity in Singapore. These children are not all orphans, most of them being victims of broken families or whose parents are either imprisoned or too poor to bring them up. (Yes, even in a place like Singapore, poverty does exist.)
Except for a few who were intellectually challenged (and hence abandoned and neglected by their family) or bitter about their dire state, most of them were actually quite grateful to be there. I remember spending about 2 to 3 hours a week to tutor them and even did a song item for their Christmas celebration. My stint at this Children Home lasted about 3 months. Hey, you Samaritans out there who are still helping those kids out there, Iam taking my hats off you!
But the demands of working life took me away from active long term volunteering at home, and other than another stint of a few months volunteer at the AG Home in Singapore, I was not able to do much more. In recent years, I know of friends who volunteer when they travel for holidays, and it really opened my eyes to the opportunities out there for us to contribute even as we continue in the relentless rat race. A friend from church recently called me up and told me that she was going to spend a few months volunteering in an orphanage in Cambodia. I read of the many meaningful volunteer travel stories of people who did not allow the stresses of making a living, building a career and looking after their own families to stop them from doing their bit for communities in need, at
home and when they travel. Some give a week of their time to orphanages in Chiang Mai, Thailand, others volunteer at centers for disabled or autistic children in Bangkok, Thailand or Beijing, China.
Voluntourism, volunteer travel, volunteer vacations or volunteer holidays; regardless of the different names that people call it, it opens up the possibilities for me to continue to contribute to communities even as I go in pursuit of my career, my aspirations to see the world and the interest to know more people who share the same motivation to give back to society.
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