CAAT CAS Reflection

Overall, this activity was probably one of the shortest but definitely impacted me the most. In the beginning I wanted to volunteer because bio and med are some of my passions, I thought it’d be interesting to see what they do since it’s in the similar field, and I could also write it for my CAS, kill two birds with one stone. I knew that the organization was for a good cause, and so I knew I could get a positive feedback. 2 years ago, I volunteered at The First Social Welfare Foundation, an organization also in Taipei that provides education to the mentally disabled. That was my first time I came in contact with people who suffer inconvenient conditions, having a hard time just surviving, but more so surviving in society, from judgments and adulthood responsibilities(getting a job, etc.). I was 14 back then, I fed some of the kids, help move them around, do errands for the teacher and also played around with some of them(who have better conditions). My mind opened up ever since, I had felt something from those children and had some thoughts to myself, but wasn’t thinking too much after awhile, although it did get me more interested. This time I volunteered for CAAT, the Ice Breaker Team, my job in the two days were to just assemble and re-equip some devices they use to help the physically disabled. What I did was really nothing and all those devices were interesting because they were formed by many brilliant ideas the group came up with, but that wasn’t the most impressive, what really hit me the most was WHY they did it, their motives and their intentions for doing such things. One of their members, Mr. Lin showed me some of the videos and pictures of their cases while explaining me the reasons and why they do all this. As I was watching, I was in urge of tearing up from how much I was touched by. I always knew that, yeah, every life is important and no one life values more than another, but I’ve never really experienced that thought, and at that moment I finally knew what it meant. Mr. Lin said, no matter how severe the condition is we want them to know that there can still be a chance, and not have them be looked down upon and judged by in society. He told me that this type of business will never make money, but they do it because of the positive feedbacks they receive from each patient and each case. I look up to what they do and have done, compared to 2 years, I now can perceive the insights behind and value their efforts more. I’ve been feeling extraordinarily good these days, maybe from listening and being around these great people, and have learned that sometimes when you feel down, when something bad happens, just tell yourself, it ain’t THAT BAD, just accept it, change it if you could, and don’t get too down about it, because there are bigger problems than that, and that there’s always a solution. The other thing I learned from seeing what the team does, is that not only items can bring us happiness. An Iphone is 30,000 pesos, a house or nice car could be millions, but making life possible and putting hope and a smile on someone’s face is priceless.

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