SEARCH, located at the Four Directions Health Centre on 5th Avenue, provides during their clinic hours for the community's social and medical needs. There are professionals in the field of social work, medicine, and physiotherapists that are our mentors during our volunteer time. During the 2 shifts to which I volunteered, there were some returning clients. All are welcome, including intoxicated persons, though they are watched and must be calm and collected during their stay. Lunch is served almost immediately followed by individual activities or services such as Food for Fun, Women's Discussion Group, supervised children's activity room, playing puzzles with mom and dad or just running around playing tag, and any medical issues that clients need taken care of, like redressing wounds and other light medical issues.
On September 10th I was given the opportunity to volunteer at SEARCH as a childcare worker. Throughout my shift I was able to assist a little girl in her play with other children. Teaching her manners and politeness as she was interacting and playing with others was very rewarding, especially that she was willing to learn. Making a difference in this little girl's life for the day was very rewarding.
On September 17th I was stationed at the Food for Fun area. The children, and sometimes their parents , had messy fun spreading Nutella on apple slices and then topping these with sprinkles, coconut, raisins and yes, more sprinkles. Fun! Fun!! Fun!!! The other volunteer and myself were also assigned the task to hand out drinks such as coffee, tea and milk - some asked for juice which was not available this day. Maybe they had juice as an option last week?
Both days ended with debriefing and a question to ponder and share our thoughts. The first Saturday's question was how does SEARCH contribute to inclusion of community and how does it work within community? This week's question was posed after reading an article on an Indigenous community that shared everything, included one cigarette that was broken up and the individual strands shared with all in the community. The question was, how does the world view presented in this excerpt differ from the world view you know to be true? I learned about the phrase 'sihun' which means a failure to share and how it can affect us all. The need to live connectedly is necessary for survival, especially through hard times.