Those precious few we touch

Volunteer work is not about changing everything instantly; it is about the wonder of changing for the better the lives of a few among the unfortunate many, writes Dalia Ihab Younes

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Last year, I decided to take part in an extra-curricular activity. I'm not a bright medical student, but I have gained communication skills -- skills sufficient for me to participate in the awareness team backing a group of physicians from a medical caravan organised by my university and where volunteer students could also take part.

It was scary indeed for a fourth year medical student like me, with very humble medical knowledge and no practical experience, to take responsibility for spreading medical awareness in a small rural village, especially given that we were all presented to the people there as "doctors" whether we were real doctors -- like the ones who dealt with diagnosis and treatment -- or volunteer students like me! People there wouldn't accept that a student, even trained, would tell them what to do about their health.

We undertook some heavy training, not on the topics we were to talk about (which were no more than basics in hygiene and general ideas about known diseases) but on the difficult situations we might face. We had long sessions discussing situations like what to do if a question is asked that you have no clue how to answer, or how to respond if told that you look younger than the other doctors in the clinic, or how to respond to being mocked, or asked for the "real reason" behind the medical caravan that treats people for free.

Carrying our luggage of essentials and warnings, we headed to the small village where we spent five days -- days full of events and problems. Not only were the residents the focus of events and problems, we had our share too! Imagine living in a room for five days with nine other girls whom you've just met in the training sessions!

Sleeping problems ... girly problems ... but one solution: remember why you're here; you're not here to have a good time or to mingle with people; you're here for the sake of Allah, and to help the people and to give them the chance of a better life and better health by subtle and slight changes in their habits.

Perhaps our greatest problem in the awareness team was disappointment. It was our first time to deal with people trapped in the Bermuda Triangle of ignorance, poverty and illness. Some of them didn't listen at all. Some didn't understand most of what we said. Some didn't understand why we were bothering ourselves so much with trivial things like walking barefoot in the streets or getting multiple shots with the same syringe.

But there were also those vital few that made us feel we were actually doing something. Each one of us in the team had a story about one local or another who actually practiced what he/she was taught and was saved, in one way or another.

For myself, I entered a house where I found a child with horrible dehydration symptoms that none could miss, but that strangely his own mother didn't see. I understood the urgency -- that the child was actually dying -- and arranged for an emergency visit.

This experience made my vision about volunteer work more clear. The problem with many volunteers is that they expect to change the world overnight, so they get so disappointed when they find that their efforts yield meagre results. But I say; when you want to engage in development or charity work, look for quality, not quantity.

I talked to more than 200 people in that village, yet I don't think I made a real difference in the lives of more than 10; and yet those 10 are my real goal, not the 200.

So to all those who were volunteers once but who quit feeling they didn't change anything, or didn't help, please, don't look at the whole that you hoped to change. Look at the few whom you affected deeply!

Dalia Younes is a 21-year-old medical student who volunteers for UNICEF's webpage on Masrawy.com "Kalam fil Moufeed"