chlrkd123
Jan 1, 2011
Undergraduate / "helping alienated people" - CommonApp - HARVARD , PRINCETON [2]
Hello, please read my essay and edit if needed. need your feedback urgently! THANKS
Perhaps you've seen striking pictures that may be depicted as outdated patrons of individual's public relations during Christmas seasons: prominent politicians fund-raising on the streets, popular celebrities distributing free meals to homeless vagrants, and entrepreneurs of conglomerate firms playing with children at orphanages. Whenever I saw such fingers-shriveling pictures, I thought those socially renowned people should be ashamed of taking photographs intended to command esteem from the public. Is it necessary to make the best use of 'voluntary' contribution - a good conduct which must be motivated by one's pure rectitude - to make an ostentatious and pretentious display of one's moral sense publicly? A good deed shines more when it is concealed.
However, my belief gradually has been transformed through the vivid experiences from which I have explored the 'real' world. Of course, the most idealistic donation is, needless to say, voluntary, anonymous, and continuous action. Yet only a small number of people's good works cannot amend this world where a child under age of 10 perishes by famine every five seconds. In other words, volunteering should be the endowed responsibility of all the humans, not an occasional or optional work. If above-mentioned pictures can help inform the majority of the people the important obligation of contribution, the more those pictures are prevalent the better it is.
For last two years, as an active member of KOICA, an international development NGO committed to promoting sustainable development through assisting the poor in developing nations and civil society empowerment, I had an opportunity to travel Africa and Southeast Asia periodically, obtaining the unstinted financial support and practical knowledge from local secretaries staying in each country. Therefore, other members and I could learn indigenous cultures properly and work more efficiently. While enjoying traditional music and jumping dance, I helped construct and cover the Maasai houses with ash, mud, and cattle dung for waterproofing in Kenya; Filled with admiration for several hours by Angkor Wat, I made a new wooden boat for Sokkon, a 14-year-old girl whose family has no house on the ground but two boats (houseboat and workboat), in Cambodia; Realizing that there truly is no boundary between the sky and the ocean with eyes for the first time, I worked to renovate the interior and exterior of old school buildings and built street lights to provide security to the middle school students of a village in East Timor; I assembled goalposts in the park and gifted jerseys to the children who were eager to play soccer in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. It was complete happiness to be a long-awaited rain to the people who had been living in the absolutely barren wasteland.
Although abroad experiences were already priceless, they came to me as even more significant meanings. After high school graduation, I had to give up college admission due to the unexpectedly critical family situation caused by financial difficulties. Since then, I rather deplored my ill-fated life in my hearts before I started volunteering. Meanwhile, I observed a woman who had nothing for long but now have just one: clean water. She had been drinking, brushing, and cooking with stagnant ashy-colored water on which dead flies and animal feces were floating. Yes, it must be shocking and it will become stronger if you see. Nonetheless, when limpid well water became available through the aid of our drilling machine, she looked too content as if she had got everything in her hands. My grumbling must be dumbfounded because I had everything she was longing, recently lost one, a quite trivial privilege, and got daunted as if having lost all, in the woman's perspective. Then, I found that I was unconscious of a huge happiness all the while. In addition, it stimulated my prolonged inherent desire to extend my hampered study at college.
Volunteering is rent for the space we occupy throughout our lives. Since we fortunately and vicariously have been using relatively ideal environment to where some other people unwillingly have to live, we need to share both convenience and discomfort with them by offering and experiencing, respectively. Many people participate in volunteering because they want to - the superlative. Some people volunteer under an obligation conveyed from schools or workplaces - better. There are people who volunteer to show others - good. That is because helping alienated people spending time, emptying pocket, and making efforts is an action to brighten the world no matter what.
How and when could I repay this 'expensive' rent entirely? Are you paying it little by little, too?
Hello, please read my essay and edit if needed. need your feedback urgently! THANKS
Perhaps you've seen striking pictures that may be depicted as outdated patrons of individual's public relations during Christmas seasons: prominent politicians fund-raising on the streets, popular celebrities distributing free meals to homeless vagrants, and entrepreneurs of conglomerate firms playing with children at orphanages. Whenever I saw such fingers-shriveling pictures, I thought those socially renowned people should be ashamed of taking photographs intended to command esteem from the public. Is it necessary to make the best use of 'voluntary' contribution - a good conduct which must be motivated by one's pure rectitude - to make an ostentatious and pretentious display of one's moral sense publicly? A good deed shines more when it is concealed.
However, my belief gradually has been transformed through the vivid experiences from which I have explored the 'real' world. Of course, the most idealistic donation is, needless to say, voluntary, anonymous, and continuous action. Yet only a small number of people's good works cannot amend this world where a child under age of 10 perishes by famine every five seconds. In other words, volunteering should be the endowed responsibility of all the humans, not an occasional or optional work. If above-mentioned pictures can help inform the majority of the people the important obligation of contribution, the more those pictures are prevalent the better it is.
For last two years, as an active member of KOICA, an international development NGO committed to promoting sustainable development through assisting the poor in developing nations and civil society empowerment, I had an opportunity to travel Africa and Southeast Asia periodically, obtaining the unstinted financial support and practical knowledge from local secretaries staying in each country. Therefore, other members and I could learn indigenous cultures properly and work more efficiently. While enjoying traditional music and jumping dance, I helped construct and cover the Maasai houses with ash, mud, and cattle dung for waterproofing in Kenya; Filled with admiration for several hours by Angkor Wat, I made a new wooden boat for Sokkon, a 14-year-old girl whose family has no house on the ground but two boats (houseboat and workboat), in Cambodia; Realizing that there truly is no boundary between the sky and the ocean with eyes for the first time, I worked to renovate the interior and exterior of old school buildings and built street lights to provide security to the middle school students of a village in East Timor; I assembled goalposts in the park and gifted jerseys to the children who were eager to play soccer in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. It was complete happiness to be a long-awaited rain to the people who had been living in the absolutely barren wasteland.
Although abroad experiences were already priceless, they came to me as even more significant meanings. After high school graduation, I had to give up college admission due to the unexpectedly critical family situation caused by financial difficulties. Since then, I rather deplored my ill-fated life in my hearts before I started volunteering. Meanwhile, I observed a woman who had nothing for long but now have just one: clean water. She had been drinking, brushing, and cooking with stagnant ashy-colored water on which dead flies and animal feces were floating. Yes, it must be shocking and it will become stronger if you see. Nonetheless, when limpid well water became available through the aid of our drilling machine, she looked too content as if she had got everything in her hands. My grumbling must be dumbfounded because I had everything she was longing, recently lost one, a quite trivial privilege, and got daunted as if having lost all, in the woman's perspective. Then, I found that I was unconscious of a huge happiness all the while. In addition, it stimulated my prolonged inherent desire to extend my hampered study at college.
Volunteering is rent for the space we occupy throughout our lives. Since we fortunately and vicariously have been using relatively ideal environment to where some other people unwillingly have to live, we need to share both convenience and discomfort with them by offering and experiencing, respectively. Many people participate in volunteering because they want to - the superlative. Some people volunteer under an obligation conveyed from schools or workplaces - better. There are people who volunteer to show others - good. That is because helping alienated people spending time, emptying pocket, and making efforts is an action to brighten the world no matter what.
How and when could I repay this 'expensive' rent entirely? Are you paying it little by little, too?