On Helping the Community Be Brought Back to Life

Monday, October 8, 2007

My bedroom

4:51 AM

CADTAY, KAPANGAN-- K4 student nurses usher the community folks inside the staff house for the sitio class after registering and having their blood pressure taken during one of the outreach programs of the school.

      The aims of Community Service Involvement has now come to rise as the BSN III-K group of Ma’am Sheila May Jimeno (K3&K4) and Ma’am Lalaine Melissa Jimenez (K1&K2) joined efforts to render their utmost service to the Kapangan (Cadtay) community and its residents. Carrying their will and knowledge on community skills, the group started making their way to their assigned places. To cut it short, the best part of it all was when satisfaction was seen in the faces of the students as their hearts swelled with joy due to the exotic places and mini-forests they saw as they passed by. It was also overwhelming as a rush of warmth surpassed their hearts when they saw satisfaction and gratitude on the eager faces of the community folks.

     Community service really exemplifies the real meaning of helping and being a true Louisian. I however could prove that this as a part of our duty hours in Related Learning Experience had really proved I am a true Louisian. Despite the fact that I may lack the skills and talent to be considered one of the greatest achievers of Saint Louis University or my group for instance, I’ve learned from this activity how to establish rapport between the community and myself. This said activity taught me how to deal with the people concerned and treat the residents equally and with utmost care. This exposure also changed my principle towards life on the way I should treat my fellowmen. Beforehand, I used to think that only the poor should be given service as rather than helping the rich and the mighty. Thus, the four criteria of Community Service include the depressed, oppressed, poor, and the exploited (also known as DOPE). This knowledge pushed me to further understand the true meaning of service in the community being a nursing student at that.

On our way for home visits...

      A transformation within me through the value and meaning of community service leads me to be a better person as a dedicated nurse in the future. The value of helping other people especially the DOPE quantifies how a future nurse could deal with her recommended service apostolates and the community and people she is about to educate or help.

      The transformation on me itself could start building up solutions to our current problems in the community, thus bringing it back to life. If a community had slept for years and never realized or conceptualized anything to improve their hometown, this so called community service could help restore the residents’ passion to help Mother Nature and move to greater heights. Through sitio classes and health teachings or other activities, residents would be able to realize their strengths and weaknesses as a community and thus strive for the better with regards to health, education, and modernization. A clean-up drive activity, for instance could be able to inspire other people in the community to do the same and follow. Again, transformation or change comes about when the community of people cooperates to lead a life full of clean and green surroundings and a conscience clean and free of guilt. This I also learned and had changed into since the time we started doing the activity until the time we were done about it.

One of our home visits with Lola Acop

      The activity proved us something and gave us the greatest lesson to learn from. I learned to deal with the residents’ complaints, suggestions and appraise about how we worked. The transformation in me was great, as I became a better person that will lead to a better nurse and health educator when the time comes. Being a Louisian at that, I as a nursing student should now learn to think of the service I would be rendering to my clients and to any community our outreach programs would reach with the depressed, oppressed, poor, and exploited instilled in my mind together with the will to serve and tender, loving care kept in mind.