Social engagement, a course prepared with intention for undergraduates to learn about the society out there and contribute whatever in your capability. Through this 32 hours activity in Rumah Hope (an orphanage where we do our engagement), not only the children there gain fun and company, we as the engager ourselves also learned something from the process.
Gratefulness is one of the values I learned from engaging the society there. We are always wasting time comparing ourselves with those wealthier or better than us, never realizing that we actually have been the luckiest one all these while. Whenever I think of the children there, I feel grateful to still be able to listen to my parent's mumbling and I definitely will start appreciate every moment I have now with my beloved family.
Optimism is another values one can easily found on the children at Rumah Hope. Not all of them have the basic things like beautiful clothes and modern smartphones as we do, yet none of them show us a look of despair or sadness. They are glad to have us as company even just for a week. They are happy when given a new toy as gift. All these tiny actions in our eyes are already good enough to make their day. So why are we still complaining that our clothes are not branded and our phones are not the latest?
Lastly, through this meaningful activity, I am lucky to meet a group of teammates who can cooperate well and tolerate with each other even though we are from different races and nationality. The jobs given are lots, preparing food for thirty children and having games with them are never easy, but when all of our teammates do it together and help out each other, we manage to complete the task in time.
As conclusion for my personal reflection, I thought we are going to contribute something to the society at the beginning of the course. During the process of it and also at the end, only I realized it is actually for us to grab and learn from the society.
