LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

We started visiting the location this week and I met the lady I was going to be interacting with for the next few seasons.

As I had anticipated during the planning stage, she was one of the elderly who couldn’t speak English. The language barrier was one of the biggest challenges we faced. Even though the centre had provided a translator, he had to attend to everyone else as well. This meant that in the short time that I could actually ask her questions, I had to make them relevant, specific, and engaging. I also had to be quite sensitive when wording my questions since a lot of the people there didn’t have family and I didn’t want to make any unintentionally rude or emotionally insensitive comments.

Something that really benefitted my in the most recent week however was partnering up with one of my friends who could speak Mandarin. Although this was a short term solution, since her partner would return again next week, it was the most informative session I’ve had so far. She helped me ask all the burning questions I had and I learnt so much more about the lady I had been interacting with. Keeping in mind that this was only a short term arrangement, I asked as many questions as possible. I noted down everything I found interesting about her and even asked her to draw something for me in order to connect with her more.

For future sessions, I asked her what she would like to do and she said that she would love to try something like origami or something more hands on. I’m going to try and find some more arts and crafts for us to attempt together while the translator makes his rounds so the session doesn’t go to waste.