This weekend was a great one for me, apart from the fact that its my birthday week, I spent this special week meaningfully helping an 80-year old man who lives alone in a rented-flat to clean up his home and give his house a fresh new coat of paint. I did it with my friends who were not only youths, but active volunteers in their 50s and 60s as well. Despite waking up early in the morning and assembling at 9am to begin work on his home, we were all charged up knowing that our service to him would really make a difference in his life, in the short-run as he would have a cleaner place to live in, and the newly-painted home would really make his day, each day. For this project, we were led by Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC (Woodgrove), Mr Ong Teng Koon. It was definitely not easy since we only had 4-5 hours to work with. Thankfully, we were given adequate materials, though not all came on time, but it was good enough for us. We first started with clearing all of the home owners belongings and shifting it outside and helped him to sift out what he needed and what he would like to be thrown away. Next, we started with a basic coat for the entire house, including the toilet and greasy kitchen walls, and thereafter, followed by two other coats. We ended the project at about close to 2pm. My biggest take-away from todays project is that its important to know the needs of the person youre helping. In our case, we actually checked the needs of the home-owner and did not prescribe what we felt the beneficiary should get, this is imperative! Once we know what they have and what they dont have, we can then be effective in helping them as we now know what they truly need. Indeed, it was a good week and what better way to top it all off with a volunteering activity over the weekends! Ill do it all over again if I have to :) Best regards, Farhan Firdaus
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 14:06:46 +0000
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