Honestly, I've
lived a life where I have volunteered very little. I mean the most I've ever
volunteered for was helping pack donations for typhoon victims. Actually being
part of a team for a project meant to aid a community was something that did
not happen to me until last year. However, my inaction did not mean pure
indifference towards worldly issues. I’d like to think myself as someone at
least mildly socially aware. I mean a feel a real uncomfortable feeling when I
see the visible, tangible forms of these issues in our world: seeing beggars
down the streets; innumerable rows of shanties; smog enveloping the air; and
many more problems. This persistent
imagery of social ills has always disturbed me. Yet all I did before was think
to myself that someday in the future I will be able to help change things. Yet
as the years went on that “someday” just didn't seem to come. I would imagine
how it would be like to actually help, yet nothing ever came of it. I didn't
have any initiative before. Yet as I got older I came to realize that I had to
make “someday” happen—it had to happen now. And so at the moment I am at a
point in my life where I can make more meaningful choices and actually aid
people in ways I've not done before.
Honestly, this is
just the beginning so I don’t have many stories to tell. I can briefly talk
about lifestyle changes I've been trying to commit to, but I feel like I’m at a
point in my life where I can’t really reduce the consumption of my household to
a degree I believe is adequate. In general, it is only now that I am actually
finding opportunities to be slightly more socially active as I grow more aware
of issues and as the root problems of these issues reify in my head. So what am
I doing now? I guess I am looking for opportunities to volunteer and looking
for the concrete ways I can directly help people. Volunteering in BCYF is probably
the first extra-curricular I am doing that’s development related. Hopefully,
this won’t be the last.
Contributed by:. Nicolas Santiago, a 4th Year Development Studies student from Ateneo de Manila University
Disclaimer: The author of this story permitted us to post his story online. The photo used here was uploaded through Facebook.
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