I hope to make a difference in someone's life

MC asked me to share some of my experiences with ALIVE! since I joined the program. Well, here goes.

We had our 1st visit on 28 July, a prep meet-up on 20 August, and a 2nd visit on 1 September. During the meet-up, we were asked to share on what we hope to achieve in this program. I spoke first "I hope to make a difference in someone's life."

I elaborated. We probably came into this program with the notion that these are kids who need help, kids we hope to foster a relationship with, kids who we just may be able to play a part in making their lives better. That difference, I'm not sure what, but the impact should be felt positively. But, forgot to mention, there were 6 kids on our 1st visit, and 3 on our 2nd :)

I'm not discouraged. Nor am I here looking for 'challenges' to overcome and be victorious at the end of the day. As BL shared in an email about how encouraged he felt when everyone still enthused on about how to improve on what we were doing during a post-session lunch despite the low turnout, I'm mildly surprised. Not because the low turn-out should demoralise them somewhat, but rather that the high ratio of volunteers to kids, in my opinion, may make the program less effective than it can be.

I'm no guru or expert, it's just my gut feel. With 6 kids, they were probably overwhelmed by more than 20 young adults grilling them (that's about 1:4) on what they like to do, what their ECA is, which is their fave subject, etc. With just 3 kids, the ratio doubles. When we play games, we end up playing among ourselves, solving primary school mathematics and enjoying the reminiscence of it all.

It's still fun, meaningful, and full of love. But with 1 more or 1 less volunteer, the difference will not be felt. Regardless, I made the acquaintance of many younger ones with lots of love to give. And THAT is more encouraging than whatever number of children who turn up.