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NYAA: Service
Introductory Post and February Reflection

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So, the service aspect of the NYAA is finally starting up, and I’ve picked a local service to focus my efforts on this time. I’m really looking forward to working with them, so without further ado, here’s some information on why I picked my local service and my ambitions for the next year (perhaps even longer) in local service work!

My Local Service:
This term, I’ve signed up for the activity titled ‘Music Buddies with the Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPAS)’, and every Monday we travel to the CPAS School to get to know kids our age with Cerebral Palsy. I won’t go too in-depth into the specifics of the disease, but I know that I originally picked this local service because I already love music and I’ve worked a lot with lots of different kinds of people and I wanted to try something new.

However, nothing really went as planned and it turns out we’re helping out with ‘Life Skills’ class instead, but I think this type of action is a lot more meaningful and allows us to interact with the kids on a deeper level, helping them with aspects of their daily lives and really getting to know them as people.

My Observations from the Past Month:
I feel like they process everything happening around them, but find it difficult to respond, and I find that really sad. I’ve been trying to interact with them, and it’s been really fulfilling because one girl, Rain, will reach out her hand for me to hold or clasp and the fact she’s making the effort to reach out to me really touches me because it gives me a sense of hope that maybe one day she can be more accepted in society, and hope that she’ll be able to build meaningful connections with others just like any human would.

I’m still nervous about visiting the kids, but I sincerely hope that we have a positive impact on the kids’ lives. I want to work on observing them as much as I can, to learn more about them. I talked to one of the teacher facilitators as well, and he talked about how he was helping to ‘enable’ the kids, and how he was comfortable with them, which makes me realise that it actually is very difficult to get to know them at first, but I think that over time I should really be able to build a connection with them.

My Goal:
Everything I’ve said so far is tying into my goal, which is “to make the cerebral palsy group feel more accepted by society through volunteering for them, communicating with them and building a relationship with them.” I chose this goal because I really want to focus on the idea of human connection here. I’d also like to continue thinking and working on the idea of Human Connection because I feel like the intricacies it contains may help me discover things about the inner workings of the human brain and also help me form better relationships not only with other people, but with myself as well. 

So, those were my hopes and first perceptions of CPAS, and I’m genuinely looking forward to exploring this topic more and doing more work for CPAS. Thanks for reading!