Page 131 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.
P. 131

Arina Beidik


              KFC Oblaka
              Town of Engels

                  This Is My Cup of Tea!


                  I have always had a desire to help those who need that. But
              I could not find THE fund where I would have felt comfortable
              and my activities would have brought tangible results.
                  I have a close friend who stayed in an orphanage fortunately
              not for a long time. We discussed that period of her life: she was
              sharing the child’s fears of hers and the feeling of loneliness which
              she had experienced then. And I was thinking that I  could be
              helping the guys, lonely teenagers in orphanages. And only when
              I started working in KFC and found myself in the team of volun-
              teers who had been helping the guys from orphanages, I under-
              stood that this was exactly the format of charity that I wanted to
              deal with, that ‘it was my cup of tea’.
                  The first few visits to the kids were very embarrassing for me.
              These kids, what are they like? How do they communicate? How
              do they behave? How shall I behave, and how shall I talk? I was
              asking myself millions of questions. Later on, I got to know them
              closer and I  have understood  what an inexpressible feeling it
              is when the kids remember you, wait for your and are glad to
              see you, running to greet you! They cannot wait to communi-
              cate, telling something and sharing their emotions with a person
              whom they trust. We are learning together, each of us mastering
              the skills that are unfamiliar particularly to him/her.
                  I am glad that of all the volunteering formats I have managed
              to find the one that is to my liking and the one where I am being
              useful.
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