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Out of all the amazing activities from this unforgettable Prague spring trip, the homeless walking tour given by someone who used to be homeless herself was something that stuck with me and made me heavily reflect.
In this activity, we were guided around many parts of the hustling bustling city of Prague, and were shown different places of significance for homeless people, both currently and from the past, thanks to the personal experience of the tour guide. Although I can’t particularly think of anything I did that could be seen as a CAS activity, the cooking for the homeless that my group and I did afterwards could’ve been considered a service activity.
But notably, the walking tour and the heavy-hitting words from the guide about life on the streets made me all the more motivated and inspired during the cooking. Moreover, if the guide were to hypothetically submit a CAS activity, hers would’ve definitely been a service. I genuinely cannot recall the last time I felt so moved and felt so aware of a different part of society, her speeches made me so much more open-minded. I will never forget her act of service by teaching us so much about an almost taboo or touchy subject that needs to be openly discussed more. This activity also helped me realize my lack of open-mindedness when it comes to struggling parts of society, everyone knows that they struggle, but not many truly think about how many things that are normal for the comfortable people in society and how the things that we do can affect the ones who are struggling to get by. With this activity, I felt enlightened, and I experienced much personal growth because of the in-depth look into this part of society.
Therefore, because of how much this activity stuck with me, I gained the inspiration to want to look into planning future CAS activities to hopefully help out my local homeless communities. I remember, during one of the guide’s speeches, she talks about different shelters and what they did for the homeless, which made me reflect on what my home countries are doing.
So, at one point, I want to look into shelters and help centres locally, and see if I could do anything to help them in hopes of changing something or even just making their lives a little easier.
