My self-Reflection

My self-Reflection

During my community service course this semester, I was honored to be given an opportunity to participate as a volunteer worker in Takatof. This experience have not only allow me to understand what community serviceis about, but it also allowed me to understand what does it mean to volunteer for important social and humanitarian causes.

Our first event as Volunteers with “Takatof, took a place in one of Marina Mall corners, where we had the opportunity to communicate with the mall visitors and explain to them the purpose of the event.

We’ve introduced them to an application called “City Guard” which is a mobile application offered for free to all Abu Dhabi residents, whether they are UAE nationals, working expatriates or even visitors to the Emirate. Briefly, “City Guard” allows the public to report incidents and submit complaints related to the Abu Dhabi Emirate directly to the government as it aims to increase civic participation and collaboration between the public and the government to improve the Emirate at all levels.

Volunteering in this event was a great experience for all of us, as we were talking to people from different ages and nationalities, handling them brochures and tell them about the application.

Although being there at the event was quite stressful for me, I’ve managed to get over this feeling when I saw my other colleagues walking bravely towards people and tell them who we are and what we are doing here.

Moving to our second contribution as volunteers with “Takatof” was at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. This event is about a photographic exhibition to raise awareness for the fight against Malaria produced by photographer “Adam Nadel” and hosted by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) and the UAE Ministry of International Cooperation & Development.

Our role in this great event was to help in organizing the exhibition and educate visitors on malaria and its consequences. We were also handling brochures to visitors to raise awareness for the fight against Malaria and we also guide them through the photo gallery to see the great images captured by “Adam Nadel”.

This was really interesting for me as I had no idea how dangerous is Malaria, and I enjoyed explaining the causes and the consequences of this disease to people. For me it was more than volunteering, it is meaningful humanitarian event to participate in.