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Month: April 2019

How does my idea of empathy changed after this service?

How does my idea of empathy changed after this service?

How does my idea of empathy changed after this service?

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another – it is how we care and communicate with others. It is a human tendency and we all possess empathy at different levels. This service has helped my reflect more on what empathy means and where it is misconstrued. In our service, we interact with students with cerebral palsy – a cognitive disability that usually occurs during childbirth that leads to a lack of the ability to muscle control. In our sessions, we assist teacher with their lessons like art and craft or food exploration.

I’ve always been quite an empathetic person but service has helped me be more true with my empathy. Oftentimes, the world views people who are differently abled with pity, not empathy. We always think that we should be extra-kind or extra-sensitive towards people who aren’t the same as this and this is the basis of being unauthentic with how we care. When I first joined the service, I did not understand this difference. But I learnt that it is treating the students we work with just as anyone else and not like they need our pity in it’s own way to show our true empathy. Empathy is sharing the feelings of another – equal to another, it isn’t being overly polite to people.

 

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