For my STEP project, I went to the Village of Ban Nam Khem in Thailand to help teach English, basic healthcare, and assist in the development of special needs children. I went through a program called GVI which provided me with my living conditionswithin the village that we provided service in. We taught English to orphans from the tsunami at BTNC, we taught basic healthcare to teenagers at the CDC, and led lessons and activities with special needs children at Camillion developmental center.
This trip was an amazing experience for me and allowed me to discover more about myself. For one, I never realized how much I enjoyed working with kids. Since I am on the pre- med route, this may have helped shape my future in the desire to become a pediatrician after this trip. The trip also made me realize how rewarding it is to help people. Our living conditions were by no means very good and it was always really hot and humid and the bugs were bad, yet those three weeks in Thailand were probably the best three weeks of my life.
My service trip to Thailand offered me insight to what other cultures are like outside of the United States and made me realize how fortunate I am to be able to go to school. This trip was the first time that I have ever been out of the country and man was it crazy. Their culture is so vastly different than ours is and made me see how not everything revolves around America. The village we did service in was a tiny fishing village so most children left school before they were teenagers to help their parents with a trade which was fishing for the most part. Being given the opportunity to go to school is a real gift and this trip has made me appreciate that so much more.
As I said before, this trip has made me realize that I love working with children. Before this trip I had not considered myself to be one that loved children so much. One experience that made me realize this was teaching English to 4-6 year olds at the local orphan school. They were the cutest little Thai kids you’ve ever seen. I felt a great sense of reward when teaching the words that we were covering that day and by the end of the lesson they would be able to repeat the short English words I had tried to teach. The kids made me smile every day and is a fond memory I will have forever.
One experience that was extremely rewarding and made me realize how much I love to help people was the work we did with special needs kids at the Camillion center. Our job was to help them grow in their cognitive skills and social skills. We would organize games and activities to improve on cognitive skills and did physiotherapy to help the kids with physical disabilities. The kids didn’t speak any English and I certainly couldn’t speak any Thai, yet I felt like the whole time I was there we understood each other. It was my first time ever working with special needs kids and I had no idea how it would go at first. This experience has made me much more respectful of people with special needs and let me see all of the challenges that they go through. The kids were always happy and brought a smile to my face.
Another thing about Thailand that made the trip rewarding were just the people in general.I am pretty confident in saying that whoever is reading this is probably doing a lot better and is wealthier than every single person in the village of Ban Nam Khem. People there have little food, live in small concrete rooms for a house, and have little education, yet they are some of the happiest people I have ever come across. Thailand is known as the country of smiles and this village is there to uphold that reputation. Everyone you meet greets you with a smile and is incredibly friendly. Even in restaurants and public transport, the workers and customers seem to be far nicer and friendlier than anybody here in the United States. This has made me see that money doesn’t buy happiness and you don’t need a lot of material goods to be happy. Take these people as a living example and just appreciate what you have.
As I said before, I am pre-med at Ohio State and I think that this trip may have shaped my future forever. This trip has made me realize how much I love working with kids and how rewarding it is to help people in need. These two qualities instilled in me by this trip seems to be the perfect comparison for the requirements needed to be a pediatrician. When people ask what kind of doctor I want to be, I will tell them that I am striving to become a pediatrician from now on. I hope that when Im older and fulfill my dreams of becoming a pediatrician, I can look back at the service trip in Thailand, made possible by STEP, and see that that was the trip that shaped my future.
