Tuesday, November 17, 2009

There is hope…definitely

I spent my last Saturday afternoon sitting in an auditorium listening to a group of people report on the work that’s been done in the past as well as chart out their plans for the near future. Usually at such ‘gatherings’, I expect the presentation to be boring, some participants to be irritating and the mood to be generally dull and monotonous. It was indeed boring when the organisers presented the usual data and info but miraculously, the tempo began to pick up when the minister spoke and the floor fielded question at him and his five other counterparts, all MPs and/or ministers.

What got me thrilled enough to want to blog about it is, all these work were not for the benefit of the participants themselves but other people…technically strangers to us all. In other words, we were listening, debating, discussing on how we could help someone else’s kids, someone else’s parents, someone else’s families. It was simply amazing to hear volunteers from all walks of life stand up and articulate their observations and concern for the less fortunate amongst our kind.

A young high school girl shared her concern for the elderly, a principal couldn’t help but wondered aloud if we could do something to help students in schools with their emotional needs, a guy in his fifties commented on how impressed he was with the organisation as he had always thought that only Chinese-speaking people volunteered here. The truth was there were non-Chinese seated amongst us. The mic was never rested but passed from person to person until the minister had to end the discussion due to the other engagements of the panel.

Only one word to describe how I felt to be seated among this group of people…heartwarming! I never realised until now how silly I’ve been in picking at all the things the organisation could do, should do but did not do that I overlooked the things the organisation did do over the years. By the fact that such a huge number of people (reportedly to be 67,000) have benefited from the various programmes plus the continual presence of the participants at such seminars have proven that warmth can still be felt on this hard, tough earth.

The truth is, we cannot help everyone but we can definitely help someone. The cup was never half empty…it has always been half full, at least. How blind I’ve been. There is hope after all…definitely! ^_^

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