A Reflection on different volunteer work

It was my first twenty-four hours to fall in ‘Market & A ; Craft Day ‘ as portion of squad of Pt Chevalier Community Centre. This market uses to be held on every 3rd Saturday of the month and the intent is for everyone in this community holding a topographic point to purchase and sell goods such as second-hand house ware, handmade trade, nutrient or anything they want to convey from place. This activity besides provides occupant, little concern and organisation an chance to link with the community, to advance themselves and do a payback to the community because the fee from the stall engagement is portion of support to run the Community Centre and its programmes. My occupation was as an helper to sell BBQ sausage with John, a commission member who has been called as ‘Sausage director ‘ and ‘Sausage expert ‘ . That is because he has volunteered in this occupation for a long clip. This is a gag between those team members as John is the youngest of the squad and it is the manner how they treat each other like household. From their conversation and the little talk, I found out Kiwis love to hold temper and do gags to show their concern for each other, particularly for well-known friends. They besides made gags to me but non much that I think they might worry about I could non understand their gags so acquire embarrassed. They were easy-going and had an opened bosom to do friend with me even though I am from a different cultural group. I could experience that how I was accepted as portion of group and been treated like a household. I was truly basking my clip with them as they had shown me the most of import cultural rites of New Zealand – dainty everyone every bit. In add-on, during my volunteering, I learned how to cut onions and how to do BBQ sausage and custom-built sandwich. This is the first clip of my life for making this occupation. Through my work, I have known it is a really common formula in New Zealand to hold BBQ sausage with onion, mustard sauce and toast as a bite for out-of-door activity. Besides, as John did, some people love to hold toast with ‘Spaghetti ‘ and tomato sauce which is another particular western manner that different from Asian ‘s. Compared with Taiwan, we use to hold assorted traditional nutrients as our bite such as Chinese roll, Stinky bean curd ( smelly tofu ) and Oyster omelette. The nomadic stables in Taiwan besides need to be approved by local council for a license to sell goods/food at wayside or local late-night market. There will be a punishment for no accredited stall. Contemplation: Day 2 – Core office work ( Wednesday, 9.30am~1pm, 22 Sep 2010 ) Karen, the Coordinator of the organisation, called me to come in to the Centre and gave me some plants to cognize the manner around the topographic point. She was besides my interviewee who gave detailed information for my 10 civilization and society inquiries and how this community Centre operate. Based on her occupation description, I know she is a cardinal to put to death the programme of community Centre and the commission of this non-profit organisation are people to sketch and to make up one's mind what programme can be launch for the community. I realized how of import to hold a community Centre in the community after I did the office work and the interview. Harmonizing to Karen ‘s information, every community Centre is a ‘Hub ‘ to associate local public library, instruction establishment and business/organization together to supply information and activities for people live in the local country. Any single or assorted groups can utilize this topographic point for any activity by merely engaging a room of edifice, or leave their poster/brochure on the notice board to advance themselves. For illustration, a private child care Centre, where besides provide free Spanish linguistic communication larning environment, has its circular placed on notice board so everyone might see its information when visit the Centre. This is a free and convenient service that provide from the community Centre for its community. I think it is besides a proper topographic point to interchange cultural value from different cultural groups by holding their activities here. Furthermore, the School Holiday Programme is a good illustration to demo how this community centre wages proper respect to instruction and multiculturalism. For illustration, it has assorted activities for age 5 to 13 old ages old kids. The activities of September and October programme in this twelvemonth included the First Aid class for childs, Hip Pop dance workshop, Surf lifesaving workshop and a drama for a Chinese narrative â€Å" The Secret of Dongting Lake † which are really meaningful for developing kids ‘s accomplishment, personal ability and an chance to understand different cultural facet. I think it is really cagey to allow kids larn while playing through those seasonal programme and activities. Everyone, including their parents, can besides do friends and have a connexion for their societal life after the activity. It ‘s a really valuable part that the community centre gives us and the NZ society. Contemplation: Day 3 – Work in the Op-Shop ( Thursday, 10.30am~1pm, 23 Sep 2010 ) Thingss that I had learned were non from my work in this Op-shop but from people here. Their behavior and their idea gave me an thought to cognize why many New Zealander, particularly the senior, have willing to be voluntary and how they made the alterations for their community. Op-Shop of Pt Chevalier Community Centre is operated by voluntaries who are Erin, Julie and a lady who I have n't met yet. Erin is the squad leader and the one to help my acquisition. She makes the determinations and manages the store to maintain it run for its clients. This is non hard to happen out she is rather dependable and motivated in her function. She has an enthusiasm and a good intend to assist people in this community. She low the monetary value down or gave free gifts to the clients who seem to hold fiscal trouble. She notices the regular client and keeps the goods, which they may necessitate, beside her desk and give an acceptable monetary value when they have come. She said there are non many people have adequate money to purchase what they want, hence, the intent of community Centre is to assist people for their demand, that is the ground she gives the cheaper monetary value and back up them in this manner. Under her direction, the Op-shop has offered a free service for everyone who needs to advance their place concern to hold their monetary value bill of fare and concern card show on the check-out procedure desk. This is another manner how Erin does to assist and promote people who is unemployed but has the accomplishments for get downing a new life. Her whole household include her girl and grand-daughters, are all happy to affect in the volunteering work. They used to donate good quality apparels and purchase 2nd manus goods from this store. These is a really good illustration which Erin and her household have showed us for how people help each other in their community. â€Å" This is good to see everyone happy † , she said. In Taiwan, there are besides many people work for charity foundations or spiritual establishments who contribute themselves to assist the society. A measure of them even has joined the planetary charity events such as what Red-Cross does. This is positive mode to give payback to our society. The truth is, we ne'er know there will be one twenty-four hours we may necessitate aid from others so that why we do n't seek to give what we have at first. More cooperation between people in the society may hold higher quality populating environment that everyone may acquire the benefit from. In this instance, I believe most of New Zealander has done this well from what I have seen in this community Centre. Language learned from my volunteering work The commission members and voluntaries of Pt Chevalier Community Centre are like a large household to me. They knew each other and have a good connexion with local occupants. The linguistic communication they used in our interaction was between formal and informal which may depend on the degree of relationship they have had with this individual. There are two different ways of the linguistic communication utilizing that I had noticed from my engagement. To well-known friends or dealingss, the words utilizing and the subjects of conversation taking were rather flexible and included a batch of temper and conversational words that I might non pick up from those native ‘s vocalization. In their little talk, they talked about friends or households they knew, gossiped about mundane affairs and made gags to each other. From here, I confirmed my feeling of what I have seen when I foremost came to NZ that Kiwis are easy-going and love to do friends. On the other manus, when communicated with me, those people were rather friendly and had tended to decelerate down their velocity and simple their words to do me understand them good. From their words use, I could cognize they had a quality of instruction degree that their behavior and speech production were soft and sophisticated. In this instance, I remember what Karen said in my interview and so most of squad member in this organisation has had a strong ‘social accomplishment ‘ which is people skill. They know how to talk felicitously with people from different background and how to do their conversation swimmingly to do both of us happy. By and large, the conversations with the squad members had given me an chance to measure my English speech production degree and to pattern my communicating accomplishment with native talkers. In my self-evaluation, the positive I got is I do n't hold much problem to do communicating with them by utilizing mundane linguistic communication, such as salutation, stating the personal narrative, give the sentiments of what I think about mundane affair and follow the instructions that I had been asked. Most of conversations were run swimmingly but I knew there is still a spread to be narrowed if I could increase my English vocabulary to show myself decently and my comprehension of listening in English to understand their words. That is the negative side of my rating from my synergistic undertakings in this community Centre. The racial tenseness in NZ multicultural society? From my volunteered work in Pt Chevalier Community Centre, I have met many people who have an open-mind to accept NZ ‘s multicultural facet and dainty it with regard. However, some information from people who work in this Centre had widened my head to see how native New Zealanders think about the immigrants, particularly for Asiatic people. That has given me an thought how I behave and interact with native people who have different sentiment about us. The Committee Chairman of this organisation, Bruce, is a really soft old adult male who was rather enthusiastic to help my larning through my work in the Market and Craft twenty-four hours. He had given me some advices to do my CV and occupation application more successful through our interview. When we had a relevant conversation about people from different racial background like me, he told me a narrative of his boy ‘s employee who had been fired because his purpose of declining the service to clients who were Asiatic looking. Bruce had told me that many Kiwis have a misinterpretation about ‘all ‘ Asiatic people in NZ are bad driver. I had made the ailment about this misguided idea as sort of racial prejudice and I merely realized that is the ground why my friends, my household and myself had experienced of being stared or shouted by Pakeha drivers when we drove a spot slow or made a incorrect manner driving accidently as it may sometimes be made by themselves eve ry bit good. Merely like the information acquired from Karen, the Coordinator of the organisation, that when a figure of Asiatic first came to NZ, many Chinese gooseberries were really affronted about it for a long clip. â€Å" They thought Asiatic people may be able to come and take our state, our metropolis and our life style ; and they took a twosome of old ages, possibly 2 ~ 5 old ages to settle down. This is long clip ago when they refused to hold that in-migration policy to let more Asiatic people into the state. But now it merely truly accepted, by and large it truly accepted, † [ SIC ] it was Karen ‘s mention of the general sentiment of native occupant. From her words, I was disappointed about the old thought of native people but pleased with the alteration that they have made. In fact, there are ever two sides of a coin that people will see from different angel of position. Most people in this community that I have met are really sort to accept NZ ‘s multicultural society which they are populating in but merely a few have negative behavior to us, immigrant from Asia states, which I truly like to disregard to populate in peace with them. In decision, I agree that people in NZ are merely like people in Taiwan who are decidedly allowed to hold a right to give critical sentiments to people who may do any injury to this beautiful and peaceable state. However, it is better to maintain their thought in nonsubjective manner and non so subjective to make a hard life environment for those immigrants to populate in. That is perfectly unjust for what we have faced – the racial tenseness in NZ.