Reflection upon NSTP Essay

Jim Henson once said, â€Å"Kids don’t remember why you try to help them. They remember what you are.† Helping doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be smart; you have to be a rich person or government officials. In fact, being a good and intellectual person does make you belong. A program named Civic Welfare Training Service (CTS) will help you acquire those required qualifications in order to possess an effective community helping even without getting in contact with government officials. CTS are one of the means for us students to help those in needs as well as for us to contribute to society by aiding these people to become better citizens. At first, I only require myself to attend and give presence every meeting just for the sake of passing and completion of units. Little did I know that CTS was not just a subject to attend but rather exposing one’s self into realities of life. As a student, I am not very much exposed to different kinds of people, different situations of everyday life, and to different communities as well. In our immersion that was held twice, I have seen those. It made me realized how blessed I am compared with them. So I have attained the urge of taking it as challenge. I am challenged because I am not typically a patient person and not quite interested in helping our community. As a beginner, you must possess virtues like integrity, dedication, fairness and an open mind to greet new ideas and innovate. You should also bear in mind the value of positive reinforcement. I was also taught that we should always establish good relationships with the kids. I witnessed many scenes that a helper encounters in his/her civic service career. I felt what those people one’s being generous when he/she wants community to learn something new from his/her. Here, I felt pity with the students not having a proper care from their family. I learned so many things in this serving experience. I learned how to be more prepared for the foods that I will give to them, and to be patient in making understand our purpose of helping them, and to be a good listeners too in their own stories. I learned the difficulty of servicing community and the joy I got from it. I learned how to have sympathy for others, to understand their weaknesses and to appreciate their abilities. Most of all, I learned how to socialize with other people, expose myself to the community and adopt their surroundings. CTS helped me develop and grow even more as a student. It opened our minds for us to be able to understand the different circumstances as to what the children experienced. It helped us not to be judgmental to these children and instead to extend our patience until they will be able to understand what is taught to them. We always end our program with a prayer, making the children realized that whatever happens, we should always thank God about everything for what He had given to us, that we should ask for forgiveness and hoping that by the next immersion, it would be much better.