Volunteering, Fifth Avenue

This picture was captured right on the Fifth Avenue in New York City. For me, it was such a contrast picture between the haves and the haves not. The irony was that while a lot of people were willing to spend thousand of dollars on LV or Gucci, no one seemed to care about this little old lady or give her even a dollar.

This is a tale of the big city.


VOLUNTEER

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people don't do anything about it."
Albert Einstein

I first found the Einstein quote (above) on the board in the Thai civil war exhibition at Thammasat University that was held after the political conflict between the civilians and the military was over. This tragic turbulence caused thousands of casualties and the wounds that have never been healed. When I first saw that quote, it totally hit me right to the heart of the fundamental problems of current social issues. It is true that the world becomes evil not only because there are some people who commit them, but also because the majority of people who see those evils being committed, but choose to do nothing to stop them. Most people become ignorant. They do not care. They will not do anything unless those dangers become their problems. If we allow people to commit evils, we are, indeed, the one who commit them ourselves.

We do not have to do something big, but even some small actions can create the chain reactions. Like the Chaos Theory, the small wing of butterflies in the tropical forest can create the hurricane in the Atlantic. The small actions of each member of the society that, eventually, can affect society as a whole. Let’s imagine, if everyone just contributes what he/she can do to help other people (or even to the environment, for example, stop disposing garbage in the river) and embarks on it, the whole society will gain the enormous benefits from those actions. Volunteering, I believe, is the first step of contributing something to society. There are different kinds of volunteering such as politics, religions, environment, humanitarian and so on. Personally, I am interested in many kinds of volunteering. Therefore, in this section, you will see some different organizations, ranging from politics to humanitarian. These organizations that I have listed here, I already have some kinds of involvements, if not as a field participant, I have contributed either money or time.


However, I do not believe in any religious organizations that are using their volunteering works as a tool to persuade those suffering people to accept their belief. I believe that everyone has his/her own right to choose his/her own religion without any benefits or things as a persuasion. The religious organizations that truely help other people should not inject their belief in those people who have no choice but to accept it under their harsh circumstances.

This is the reason that I do not volunteer in any religious charities or organizations that use the volunteering work as a tool to propagate their belief. I believe the religion should be propagated by means of sharing dialogues in stead of volunteering with some hidden agendas of converting other people beliefs.

 


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