A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with one
of my colleagues about life, and he asked me the same question that plagues us
all, “What do you want to do after college?/What do you want to do with your
life?” Being the indecisive person that I am, I have had about 32023938 career
goals in the last year, so I replied with a broad response, “I want to spread
smiles around the world.”
Since I am in South Africa, I figured this would be a great
place to start spreading smiles
J.
And what better way to spread smiles than by doing community service and
helping others, right? So last weekend I found a couple of community service
projects that me and some of my fellow study abroaders could participate in,
and we went out as a group to help an organization called Southern Ambition
with their community service for a day.
The project I contributed to was called “Youth Solutions.” Youth
Solutions is a shelter for homeless, black teenage males in the Cape Town area,
and since it is a fairly new establishment, there was a lot of work that needed
to be done to the facilities. Different projects for the day included painting
walls, laying down carpet, gardening, setting up the library, and last but not
least braaiing! I helped with setting up the library and did some gardening
(but I wasn’t really trying to get dirty). Once all the work was finished, we hung
around the shelter and played soccer with some of the young boys until the
braai was ready. It was definitely a fun & productive day. I’m looking
forward to participating in more community service projects while I’m in Africa!
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| Fellow volunteers |
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| Cleaning shelves |
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| Organizing and categorizing the books |
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| cleaning shelves |
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| The finished product |
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| The braii = chicken & sausage |
