Reading today’s prompt made me realize just how much my introverted nature has pulled me away from exercises that help other people. I’m usually inclined to turning offers like volunteering or being on the frontlines of events like that.
And come to think of it, I have had endless opportunities to volunteer, yet they were almost all turned down. Well, I will take this as a wake-up call to do better and put myself out there. Even though it requires me to step all the way out of my comfort zone, which is scary.
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For today’s post, though, I will be writing about a volunteer-ish event my colleagues and I organized for a certain community in Enugu State. This was back in school when I was in my third year of university.
We actually organized several health awareness events to be held in the Ikirike community. We planned to do home visits since the village people weren’t so keen on coming down to the health center where we were stationed. We figured that if Muhammad didn’t want to come to the mountain, we would bring the mountain to Muhammad.
And so we set foot at dawn, dividing ourselves into three groups so we would cover more houses within the time we had. Under the scorching rays of the sun and through the muddy lands of the community, we marched onward to any houses we came across.
We made sure to be polite to the people and knock before barging in. When we got to a house, we would greet the people, ask after them, and express why we were there. We planned to check their vital signs, so we came prepared with our materials: thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, sphygmomanometers, and stethoscopes.
The experience was a unique one. We learned so much about the people and the community as a whole. We created great rapport with them and left them smiling and feeling good about themselves and curious about their health status.
We gave health advice to the best of our abilities and knowledge and instilling in the desire to drop by more often at the health center when they needed and to not turn a blind eye to any health issues they or their children might be having.
In these visits, we also administered vaccines to the children that needed them. We administered the oral polio vaccine, to be exact.
I discovered, among other things, that these individuals had children like flies. A family that looked like they couldn’t afford their next meal would come out of their house, and you would be able to count five to eight children with a pregnant mother.
We did our best to address this phenomenon. Of course it wasn’t in our place to tell them how to reproduce and whether to stop or not. We only made them see the impacts that it had on the children. We also informed them on the different methods of contraception that they could explore, so that they could have active sex lives while preventing pregnancies.
Like I said, the experience was indeed one of a kind. I am forever grateful for being a part of it!
From here on out, I would be more open to volunteering opportunities; who knows, it might even open doors that I wasn’t aware existed.
Thanks for Reading🤗🙂
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