Proud to introduce you to Mikhael Zewdu, he is one of our Volunteer Family Members... _________________________________ by Mikhael Zewdu 3 hours ago ‘Vision on Africa enhanced my Vision’ I won’t lie. The whole suggestion of community service didn’t strike me as something I would enjoy doing at first. It seemed like it would be forced work. But that’s only because that’s how people portray it when they show it on TV. The reality is that VOA is a place where you can help others while meeting people your age, from different schools, doing the same. I started going to VOA every Saturday and it was a lot of fun. Though getting there wasn’t always easy. A lot of the time my friend, who also goes to VOA and lives nearby, and I wouldn’t have a ride and would have to catch a bus. But it was worth going to VOA and helping out with the five other kids who go on Saturdays. We did a number of tasks at VOA. One thing we did was help the organization with filing and record keeping. This might not sound like an important or particularly difficult job, but actually it is a task that puts many of your character traits to the test. For example, it requires: Team work; because we all work on a number of different record books and one person counts, another makes the spreadsheet, and someone else fills it in. Trust; because all the work is based on the faith in your counterparts, that they will do their part in order for you to do yours. Otherwise you won’t get anywhere trust me. Patience; because sometimes one of us does mess up and it means we all have to start from the beginning. But the blame game and a bad attitude don’t help anyone. It’s better to just laugh it off and start again. Another thing we did was language orientation. We spent some time teaching less fortunate women basic and helpful English phrases so that they would have some sort of foundation to obtaining the worldly skills needed (especially these days) to start a small business and make a decent living. VOA provided us with pottery classes specializing in Ethiopian cultural bowls, vases, and sculptures. It really was an experience because it’s harder than it looks; also it was good for me to get a look at tools and artwork from my Ethiopian heritage. I even have a couple souvenirs from the experience. VOA also provided us with leadership and business seminars, where we did oral and written exercises depicting different situations we’ve been in individually and how we dealt with them. As for the business part we did one activity that comes to mind especially. We each thought of an imaginary product that we could sell with the others as buyers with the objective of who could get the most sales. Another nice thing about VOA is that right next door there is a bakery which has the most amazing peanut butter pies in the world. Those pies quickly turned into a usual after-community-service snack with the people who go there and gave us a chance to get to know each other better. To sum it up, being a part of the VOA organization was something that I will always remember. I believe it helped me learn to be a better individual as well as grow deeper morally. Saying all this, I would like to thank the founder of this organization, Ms. Senedu Arya-Selassie for dedicating her life to this cause and giving us a chance to help.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:22:48 +0000
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