RDA Reflection

Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) is a non-profit organization which aims to help disabled children with free horse riding therapy. So far, I have been working in RDA as a volunteer for 3 months, and the experience is valuable and amazing for me.

In RDA, horses have their own name. We do not treat them as animals but friends. The picture above is a selfie of me and my favorite partner Casper in my second session.  Casper is a little bit grumpy at the beginning of that session. But he calmed down after I padded him gently.

What really inspires me is the process of friendship building between me and a little boy. To protect his privacy, I will just call him “the boy” in this reflection. The first impression he gave me was skinny and introverted. In fact, he is one of the skinniest boys I have ever seem. The boy has a pair of big black eyes which reminds me of my younger brother. The sense of familiarity made me feel very close to this strange boy. My friend and I worked as sidewalkers when the boy was riding. Our job is to talk to him and to help him do some activities like stretch his body. But sadly, things did not go very well. Whatever my partner Judy and I did to try to interact with him, the boy just kept being silent. The constant ignorance by the boy frustrated us a little bit. Later, we started to play games with him. We gave him a ball and asked him to throw it to one of us, and we threw it back to him. The boy showed great interest in this activity had a big smile on his face. After the session, we told Erika, the person in charge of RDA, that the boy liked throwing balls a lot. Erika said in this case, she would provide this activity more often for the boy. I was very touched by the fact that the boy said “thank you” to the horse he rode on. I believe he is not as reluctant as he seems. It turned out that my intuition was one hundred percent correct. After some weeks of this therapy, the boy finally started to talk about himself with us. He did not talk a lot, but these words were valuable information for me to know him further. I think the boy is not confident enough and he feels disadvantaged because of his physical condition. I said a lot of encouraging words to him. I want to let him understand that physical condition is not his restriction. Physical condition is something hard to be changed, but the mindset is not. Perspective is powerful, sometimes we just need to see things from different angles. If you think the physical condition is something that restricts you, you will be sad and full of hatred to this world. But try to think in this way: special physical condition is something that makes you unique, then you will learn to accept it, live with it and even appreciate it. The boy is smart, I believe one day he will understand it.

The picture above is me and my partner, Judy.

Last week, the boy even brought me candies! He really changed a lot in this three months. I was really touched. RDA gives me the chance to know more people and to help others. I really learned a lot from this service. Communication is the bridge which connects people together. Not only communication, we also need to have patience. Sometimes we just do not truly know about the inside of a person. After further communication, I believe we will find out lots of beautiful virtues of the person and gain a valuable friendship as well.

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

2 thoughts on “RDA Reflection

  • November 9, 2017 at 12:36 am
    Permalink

    Hi Kitty, I really like how you have been able to make a strong connection and develop your relationship with the boy.
    I think that it is really important in service, to feel like you are helping someone. Do you think that the boy you are working with is benefiting from your sessions?

    Reply
  • May 8, 2018 at 12:15 am
    Permalink

    Hi Kitty,
    I enjoyed reading your post a lot! It’s fantastic to see how you built a relationship with one of the kids in your service. And I like how you show your communication skills in your post. I also like the last part of the post where you show your thinking about disability. Maybe it’ll be even better if you show how the boy had developed with his horse riding skills over the service sessions.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar