Community Involvment
You can find here a quick summary of my volunteering engagement from 2023 to 2024. I had many different opportunities in the last year. From organizing a blood drive and keeping patients company to traveling abroad to help communities which were more in need, I really appreciated every second of it.
Hema Québec
I completed around 5 hours of community work for Hema Québec. Being part of the health committee at my CEGEP, we organized a blood drive for the people of Lachine. We took care of the advertising while Hema Québec managed the logistic of it. It was a wonderful experience that I hope to be able to reproduce next year. On the picture you can see Rania, a good friend of mine whom also participated in the blood drive organization, and I next to one of our banners which was posted at the town hall.
Obras Sociales
From the 26th of June until the 8th of July I had the chance to participate in a volunteering abroad program with IVHQ. I was situated in Antigua, Guatemala. My program was medical orientated. I was paired up with a doctor to help assess the new patients. I worked at the only hospital which treated severely handicapped people. The patient age range was very wide from 2 months old to 78 years old. Apart form helping the doctors during the morning rounds I also worked with a special needs teacher. I was exposed to a very different reality from the Canadian healthcare system. Shadowing a doctor and working in an environment where resources were lacking made me realize how much the basics of human contact were as important as the multimillion machines.
An Unexpected Experience
I also volunteered with the physiotherapy team which was located at my hospital. During my stay, I had the chance to participate in the Paralympics tryouts with one of the patients. Johnathan and I played boccia and we finished 2nd. I was very proud of the results which were yielded from all the efforts the teams put into the event for the participants to enjoy themselves as much as possible. We could see the joy on everyone's faces. It was a day to remember. On the medical side of things, I learnt how to do some simple stretches with the immobilized patients and helped figure out some adaptative devices for the patients to perform better when playing boccia.
Lifelong Friendships
This experience permitted me to meet some people which shared the same values of selflessness as me. I made some great friends along the way and will not only remember this experience solely as a medical learning experience but also as a personal growth experience.