Let's publicise our blog and a story

It seems that the people who are visiting or writing on the blog are the same few people all along. Where are all the rest ah? For those who see this, let's start to spread our blog address! We all out it on our msn msg so others will know. Steady.


I realize that there hasn't been many stories from volunteers about their volunteering experiences, and since there aren't many activities lately, I thought I will share one with all of you. Hopefully more people can come forward and share their stories, be it your own or others. A blog is just about writing what happened last Saturday! All of us will have a story we can tell. Here's mine:

At the recently concluded TH camp that was held in January this year, I think what really made the greatest impact on me was being at the abseiling platform and watching the residents attempt to abseil the 12-metre high wall one by one. I think not everyone had the chance to be up there and be in the position that I was in; I guess one word to describe the experience will be captivating. A few moments stood out in my memory: that of Kah Soon, crying on his first two attempts to go down before finally completing the descent successfully on his third try, when I thought he would be one of those residents who would definitely have no problems; that of Bee Hong, beaming happily as she walked down the wall; and of all those on the platform, both volunteers and residents, singing “Santa Claus is coming to Town” to Bee Ting as we tried to coax her to attempt the abseil.

Two other incidents occurred to me though, that had nothing to do with being on the platform. One was Francis (from MYG MINDS West End Project) saying, when we were planning for the camp, that he didn’t think activities the incorporate a height factor were appropriate for the residents. Another was overhearing Ken saying near the end of the session that the number of residents who went down was already more than he expected.

I remember one particular fine day when I had just started volunteering at MINDSville and I had nothing to do. I decided to look through all the files uploaded in our CSC yahoogroups, and came across this file written by Shiyun, in which she noted the points she learnt from attending a workshop. There was one line in that document which stayed with me: “Never underestimate the residents.” Now, I don’t know whether I was being pretty oblivious to our residents’ limitations or just overly optimistic, but I had expected most of the residents to be able to complete the abseil successfully, and was more concerned about time constraint more than anything else. I was rather surprised to find out that so many people thought they wouldn’t make it, even the most experienced volunteers. Personally, what I feel we can take away from this is that our residents are really much more able than we believe. So perhaps we should try more often to give them the opportunities to surprise us with what they can achieve. It can be simple things like allowing them to carry out activities independently or simply not holding their hands when walking. Hopefully, one day we can all sit back and let them astound us one by one.

Cheers everyone and have a great weekend.