Idea Napkin No.2

1) I am just a kid from Florida. I have worked with mentally disabled kids and adults throughout the past four years through Camp I am Special in Green Cove Springs and Best Buddies. This sparked my passion for occupational therapy. I am predominantly white but I am also Filipino. This identity has made me a bit divergent because I have never felt like I do belong to a specific race. I am just human. I am also a humanist and I have a lust for travel so I wanted to find a way to incorporate occupational therapy and travel to satisfy myself and to make the biggest impact on the world as possible. It is my personal philosophy that it is not how you spend your money, it is how you spend your time. I see this venture as something I could do for a majority of my life.


2) I am offering the service of holistic Occupational and Physical therapy to help relieve some disabilities caused by the displacement of war. Occupational therapy, according to the American Occupational Therapy Organization is an evaluative process that is personalized for each individual to help them set goals to “improve a person’s ability to perform daily activities”. Most of you have probably either been to a physical therapist or are already familiar with it. A holistic approach to these two services means that it will take into account all medical issues of each individual (including mental state) and cultural traditions and limitations to treatments.


3) The demographic of refugees change from country to country. Many are poor due to their displacement, although not all are so unfortunate. Refugees can be orphans although there are many families who have lost members or have left them behind in their home country. Many come from Sudan, Afghanistan and Syria but most recently the Rohingya from Myanmar have been moving out of the country as I have detailed before. All of these individuals have lived through adversary and some have been hardened by that experience, and some need a little more help to live fulfilled and independent lives.


4) So the funding of this NGO would be coming from sources including the UNHCR, WHO, WFOT, WCPT, IOM and others depending on the specific region or project that we would be working on at the moment. These grants would have to be applied for and evaluated before being granted. They care because they are no different than any other humans. Humans all over the world require attention from these fields so this need is universal in a sense, even if the circumstances are completely different.


5) My core competencies include creativity, pragmatism, practicality, and empathy. I believe I have the willingness to actually go make a difference out there and not just throw money at all kinds of charities because I feel like I need to give my money. I believe I am different in that I do not have desire to fulfill the American dream and I would rather use my life to love and benefit others rather than try to micro manage my own life to perfection when I know that life does not work that way in reality.

I did not receive comments for this assignment however I had two friends, one currently in the class, and one who took it over the summer, evaluate it and made some suggestions.  I was told to add more to the section about myself in question five and I added a little bit to question three about what all refugees have in common.