My Journey in
Social Advocacy
I've always been really passionate about social advocacy.
Maybe it started with what my mom would tell me when I was a little child: "Be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you."
At first, I thought that it was a simple exchange, like you give, you get. But as I grew older, I learned that it's not necessarily so. Many times, you give, and you get nothing back. You help somebody else, and they don't help you. And that's okay. Because I've realized that helping others is not always about receiving something from them, but what you learn, how you grow, and how you start loving yourself a little more in the process.
When my father was suffering from cancer, I usually went to the hospital with my mom to visit him after school. I remember seeing other patients around and something about their tired and hopeless faces stuck with me. That was what I gathered about difficulty, and it's what I committed to myself after that experience:
Whatever amount I earn in the future, whether little or much, I will always endeavor to give back, particularly to those who are ill. Because I have been there as the person who has witnessed it all happen from the bedside of the hospital.
I am a teenager in high school and not much of an asset. But I do what I can. I take small donations, visit hospitals, deliver presents, and talk with patients. Those presents won't put anyone's bills paid off, but they can give them emotional support, a reminder that they still have someone to back them up, a reminder that they are not forgotten, that society still cares for them.
And maybe that's the real purpose of social advocacy for me. Volunteering is more than getting rewarded in return, since unspoken values – the sense of belonging, empathy, and the understanding that kindness – it leaves behind is the thing that matters.
