Volunteering

Today, i started my first volunteering stint with Rainbow Centre at Yishun. Yes, the link is directly to their volunteer's page, but I figured if anyone were to read this, they would already be having thoughts about volunteering with them, so yes, I'm encouraging you to do so!

Honestly, before today, I kept procrastinating. Procrastinated in sending the first email, procrastinated in the liaising, procrastinated on the date to start, and even procrastinated to say yes to the time slot given to me. I should be ashamed. I am already reaching 23 and I still am half-hearted when I am doing things.

In my defence, I take an hour plus to get there, it is about a 15 minute walk into the place from Khatib Mrt, and my time slot was 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. I'm sure there are other time slots that I can take up if I requested, I would just be helping with different things. For this time slot, I was helping a class with bringing them out, and then accompanying the class for their 'full' school day. And I found this 'job' scope quite fulfilling, so heck it, sacrifice some sleep to experience it.

You know what? I'm glad I got out of bed and honoured my promise to turn up.

To be honest, I am amazed at how the school functions and how the teacher in charge of the class is able to control the class. She knew when they were going to act up and took the necessary action to prevent them from acting up. The times that they acted up, she knew what to do to get them to calm down. Believe me, it takes a lot of patience and concentration. It's not something that can be honed from just practicing over the years. The school used a lot of visuals, and I am super awed by how they tailor the visuals to suit each child, e.g. use of cars as symbols for tasks that he/she had to do for child that likes car. There was a lot of positive reinforcement ongoing there (sorry, I'm taking psychology, its an occupational hazard).

I am even more amazed by the children's ability. I saw a boy actually use play dough to shape various types of dinosaurs, such as the triceratops and apatosaurus (no i don't actually know the names by heart; I googled them - but it just shows how accurate he is in doing up the animal). And he was cutting really complex shapes of dinosaurs that I think I would not be able to do when I was at his age. I concluded he loves dinosaurs. I have to admit though, this class is a more independent. There are other classes where the children can be a little more difficult to handle.

Oh, and I find it super cute when I see young kids holding their partner's hands, especially when it is a little boy and a little girl. They just look so adorable! And the kids accept you so readily. One of the students just readily took my hand when I was bringing her to refill water (its my first day btw)! They would talk to me, and ask me for help, readily accept my help when I go forward to help them, etc. Honestly, how can you not like someone who so readily accepts you, much less a group? And really, would you want to go once and stop going or go when you feel like it when you know that this group of children require a as much stability in their school life as possible?

Well, I wouldn't want to do that. It has something to do with what I am learning as well. In general, children do not go very well with change. Think about it, as adults, we find it hard to deal with change at times too. How would a child be able to adapt more than an adult? Plus, these children already have enough on their plate learning their daily habits. It would be mean to cancel a volunteer session just because "I can't get out of bed".

So, I really encourage volunteering with Rainbow Centre if you like children and are willing to commit long term (about 6 mths). Don't think about ad-hoc, because if you want ad-hoc, go to SG cares instead or smth. You have to be open about the experience and must go with a heart that wants to learn about the children. Because it's easy to be blind to the good of these children when you see their behavioural problems which you otherwise might not see, or see much less in children without special needs. And yet, you could see how capable they are if you opened your eyes as well.