09/03/2022
Written by: Hazman
Helping others in the correct ways
Malaysia has been devastated by a big flood event in the previous two months, and some areas that no one expected to flood were flooded. We may witness many people volunteering to aid others in distress as a result of that occurrence. This is unquestionably a positive thing, but did the volunteers assist in the proper manner?
There are some victims who have spoken out about the recent volunteerism actions. They stated that some volunteers just chose the easiest jobs to undertake, which contradicts the goal of volunteerism. Volunteering is meant to relieve victims of their burdens, however some volunteers has abandoned a few houses just because it is too messy for them to help. They only assist those with less work, leaving victims who’s in the direst situations to fend for themselves. This shattered the hearts of these victims. If they genuinely wanted to help people, they should assist everyone instead of leaving a few to struggle by themselves.
The victims also expressed their disappointments with the attitude of volunteers. The victims said that they requested the volunteers to assist them in clearing the house by moving all of the things indoors to the outside, which they did. However, some volunteers mixed the usable things with the trash, forcing the victims to unload everything again after that in order to distinguish by themselves, causing victims more difficulties. Because not all of the things in the house are broken, many of them can be reused again with a little cleaning, but some volunteers assume that everything is broken and trash. The victims are already dealing with a significant loss, thus it is critical that they maintain the valuables in order to reduce their overall loss. Yes, the victims may not have directly requested that the broken and useable items to be distinguished, but it is common sense for people to think for themselves. If they truly want to assist people, they must assist them in all ways imaginable, not only in the forefront.