Journey in Red Cross 2007

Journey in Red Cross 2007

All right... finally found some time to type about the Red Cross.

Like in my previous post, it wasnt the most fun of the 3 camps that i have went so far, but in terms of meaningfulness, it definitely is the one to go to. Bondue and Sports were all about making friends, trying out new stuffs, and having loads of fun, but Red Cross have this added "feature" that made the camp meaningful.

Day 1 :
As with the other camps, we had to meet up at school, do some ice breaker games. The first main activity of the day was to HSA or rather Health Science Authority. There, we attend a talk and tour to get to know more about Red Cross and the process of donating blood in Singapore.

Up next, was a trip to the Red Cross Home for the Disabled (RCHN). There, we got to see the condition of the patients and the living environment. For me, it was the first time coming into contact with such patients. There consists of patients from a tender age of 3 years to 50-odd year old patients. Being disabled, they were much different from us normal human being in terms of physical and mental abilities. I cant say that it was shocking to me, but i must admit that i did not know how and what to do when i went around with the tour.

At the school, we were given time to discuss what we should do for the Home. For my grp, we were assigned to decorate some of the rooms to make it brighter and nicer. Within an hour of discussion, we managed to come up with a basic concept of designs for the rooms.

Near evening time, we had a tour awaiting for us. It was called the Myth Buster. This tour was led by a man called Charles. What we did was that we had visited a couple of places where Myths were rumoured around Singaporeans. He brought us to these places to help tell us the real stories behind the different sites. Overall, it was a knowledgable experience. We get to travel to places like Old Punggol road, Grange Road, Hillview Ave...

At night, we went off for supper! We went to Timbre, a nearby open pub which serves some excellent pizzas. Our groups have the luxury of having three year 4 students. They have given us some useful advise about school life as well as places like timbre to chill out.


Day 2 :
The whole day were in school basically spending most of the time prepareing the decoration for the rooms back in RCHD.

In the late afternoon, we attended a short lesson about basic First Aid. For me, it was more of a refresher lesson though i managed to pick up some useful medical knowledge from the trainer.

Later in the evening, we were given some interesting intellectual games to play that needs teamwork. Though i played before, it was still something that is still as new to me. We were given materials which were basic tools used to build a structure to store an egg in it. The test was to drop the structure from 5th storey down to 3rd storey. Our initial structure was able to withstand the drop and we managed to gain full points. But little did we know that we had to put in another egg after that with what's remaining of our stucture. Too bad, it was just not strong enough. The organising committee added some interesting feature in the game. They acted like medical staff or fire brigade rescuers to save the egg from the drop.

Late at night , it was more supper at Rocher and Timbre for a drink. Some of us managed to talk after that. In the end, most of us slept at around 5am.

Day 3 :
Most of us were shack with the lack of sleep we had from the previous long night. Anyway, we head off to RCHD for the main event we had planned throughout the camp.

Once there, each of the group started off with our task. We spent time pasting our artpieces on the walls while communicating with some of the patients at the same time whereever possible. We had the chance to talk to some of the patients, feed them during their meal time and simply just try to make their day.

One patient which took the hearts from many of us was this little boy who was about 2-3 years old. On the outside, he looks normal to me. I was puzzled on what kind of disability he had. A few of us simply stood beside him for a period of time. Seeing him stuggling with phaglem, coughing makes us feel so sad. For such a young child to be going through this, we as normal people could never imagine how to be like him. He did not have much reaction to what we do. This has definitely got to be one of my most memorable incident i had during my camp.