My passion and interest in social work began when I was living abroad in China. Similar to the experiences of my classmates, this activity again reaffirmed my passions for the future and the work I will engage with as a social worker. When I was living in Taipei, I got the opportunity to volunteer at an organization that works directly with children who are orphaned with HIV/ Aids. It was interesting to see another organization doing similar work in Thailand. I appreciated getting to read about the mission of Baan Gerda and the work they do to empower children orphaned through HIV/ Aids while also trying to provide a stable family home for them. I am confident that social workers could play a larger role through advocacy and education for orphaned children in other parts of the world. It was difficult to see from the website the current involvement of social workers in advocating for the rights of these children. One of the organizations I had posted about due to my involvement with the work they do is: Love without Boundaries. It was interesting how these two organizations had similar connections on trying to take children out of institutional care and move them into family environments.
Due to my interest in populations with HIV/ Aids and my personal travels to Uganda I was also interested in learning more about the work of The Aids Support Organization (TASO). The organization seems to engage in the model of using participatory action research to meet the needs of the community they serve. I was amazed to see that they had over 800 volunteers and staff involved in their work. HIV/Aids is still so prevalent in many parts of the world, however as a society there is still so much stigma and lack of knowledge around the disease. It amazed me during my time in Uganda at how many children I met who had lost a parent/ grandparent to HIV/aids. It was encouraging to see that there are movements in place to focus on education and prevention.
One of the other organizations that stood out to me along my journey was The Centre for Child and Parent Support based out of the UK. My current internship has a similar model to the Family Partnership Model that involves getting the entire family supported and treated in order for the family to feel confident in their skills. I also appreciated how this used very much of a strengths based practice model in order to empower parents and children. One of the things that I appreciated about the organization was how it seemed to be focused on strengthening not only families but community support. My criticism of the organization is that I would have appreciated to hear more from the families it served instead of just solely citing the approaches.
Overall, I found this activity to remind me of the many reasons I have been so passionate about my future career in social work. Social work is such a diverse field with so many different areas to be involved. Being in Vermont, it is some times easy to neglect the needs of the larger global context and needs of communities throughout the world. As a social worker, regardless of where we live I think it is important to have some level of involvement at an international level. During my time in Beijing, I actually met a Chinese social worker who was actively involved in advocating for the needs of orphaned children with special needs through promoting inter-country adoption. It was through her work, that I realized my dreams about continuing my education in social work so that I can continue to advocate for the needs and human rights of orphaned children.
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