#mercycentre

[erickmacek]

#happyfriday Even after all the #walking and long lines, we still were able to make each other #wyd2016krakow #worldyouthday #macekphotography #wyd #mercycentre (at Kraków, Poland)

[eastcas2016-stauf18085]

Mercy Centre Thailand Trip

Early October, we had the amazing opportunity to visit the Mercy Centre Shelter in Bangkok, Thailand. This was our chance to get in proper contact with the staff and to build a concrete relationship with the children and with the organisers at Mercy Centre. 

The trip went for 3 full days and we were able to visit the shelter twice, during the weekend. 

Throughout the trip, I learnt a lot about Mercy Centre and I really wish I could've stayed for a bit longer. This is not only to be able to build a stronger bond with the kids there, but also because I wish we could've seen the kids on a school day, and maybe even teach them a bit of English. 

As an international student, I have always heard of people giving donations and sending clothes or supplies to a country in need, but I never got the possibility to do it myself and eventually unpack the goods for the kids. I think that the whole process from picking what we were going to send, to actually giving it to them was a memorable experience. It was incredible to see the kids looking at the clothes lined up, and all the toys that were there for them. I know that people say it often, but it really made me reflect on the fact that, as a third culture teenager, I have always had the possibility to have everything I wanted, or everything my parents let me have. 

One of my first impressions about Mercy Centre was that they seemed rather ungrateful about what we were doing. Considering they have previously had big sponsors from companies like Coca-Cola, it seemed like our donations and sponsorship didn't mean much to them. I was a bit disappointed at first because we had put quite a bit of effort in putting this trip together and that for them to start unpacking our donations to them without asking really shocked me. 

Coming from an educated family, I have learnt to never take too much food when I have dinner or lunch at someones, in order to no waste it incase I didn't like it. I thought that the two days we ate lunch at Mercy Centre, some of the other students from our school were being quite inconsiderate about the food that the lunch ladies had made for us. I thought that the fact that they took so much, to only leave it on the table because they didn't like it. I was a bit frustrated by this and also by the fact that sometimes I had to clean up people's plate because they didn't want to dirty their hand with the soap. 

On our first day at Mercy Centre, we had a small session where we were open to ask any questions about the shelters and how Mercy Centre worked. I was very shocked and surprised about how cheap it was to sponsor a child for an annual education. After finding out about this, I was very intrigued to find out that they would rather us sponsor more than one child for a first year annual school fee rather than sponsoring one child throughout their whole education because that meant that we were putting all of our chances on one child. 

Overall, I was very happy to have gone on this trip because I have learnt a lot about Mercy Centre, about where the money we gave them went and how they prioritised donations. 

Next time, this trip comes, I think that for donations we need to start planning a bit ahead of time and we need to send as much as we can. 

[eastcas2016-stauf18085]

Mercy Centre Exec Team

This year, I joined Mercy Centre as the head publicity. I had previously joined Mercy Centre GC but only as a unimportant role. In order to make meetings for the whole GC more successful we have improved on our organisation and our leadership skills. 

I think that this year, being from the Exec team and having to organise meetings and meet up with the Exec team before meetings I have realised how hard and how time demanding planning a meeting or events can be. As this is my first year being in an Exec team, it has really shown me how hard it can be to set up meetings and make sure everything runs smoothly. I have also learnt to appreciate assemblies and meetings ran by other people, which are much more important in term of message and size because it really takes a lot of effort and commitment to do so. 

I really hope that not only we can continue to run the Mercy Centre GC as smoothly as it is going now, but also that later on when I graduate, that someone will be as dedicated to the matter and to the problem as much as the current Exec team is in order to keep it running successfully. 

I would also be interested in making contact with the other Mercy Centre GC from the Dover Campus so that we can organise bigger and better events. :)