Starting 2010, Yeoksam Global Village in cooperation with St. Mary’s Hospital in Gangnam-gu, Seoul has been organizing volunteer activities for foreigners in St. Mary’s Hospital. It aims to promote social responsibility as well as multiculturalism to foreigners as well as to local patients in the hospital.
The range of activities that the volunteers can do varies from preparing medical supplies up to giving entertainment and support to the young patients confined in the hospital.
“It has been always important for me why I am doing a certain task. With that, I see the importance of what I am assigned to”, Karina, one of the volunteers, said. Volunteers were assigned to clean and prepare gauzes which apparently are being used during the operations and/or emergency. Other medical supplies being prepared are the aprons which are used for operations, among others.
The volunteers are also being assigned to entertain the children in the regular children wards as well as the Children BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) ward, where most of the patients are undergoing their treatments for leukemia. Children’s age ranges from 0-18 years old. The volunteers sing, draw, play and learn together with the young patients.
According to Karina, “Knowing how important the tasks are makes what we do more fruitful. It has always struck me to see how young the patients can be, yet they suffer from the needles, medicines, treatments and operations that they have to undergo. Sometimes, with their bald head, I cannot even identify whether the childhappy to go back every month, seeing the smiles and giggles, the cute little faces of the children. But every time I go back, I am hoping not to see the same faces again, hoping to see lesser patients every time I visit, hoping that these kids fully recovered and are out of the hospital already.”These range of activities that volunteers do, do not only help the patients and the hospital. It also gives an opportunity to both foreigners and Koreans to embrace globalization, multiculturalism and differences amongst people. After each activity, volunteers are sure to appreciate one’s life more, its beauty and the consequence that comes with it.
GEO Blog Editor's Note:
