《上海日报》：Student working in palliative care ward gains insight
EVERY Friday after classes, Chen Minyuan, a 22-year-old student from the East China University of Science and Technology, spends two hours on the road from the campus in Fengxian District to the Linfen Community Hospital in Zhabei District, but she doesn’t feel tired at all.
Chen does volunteer work for the palliative care ward at the hospital, where she has worked for nearly one and a half years.
“It isn’t like what people think about working in the palliative care ward,” says Chen. “That is not a place where negative energy spreads. Instead, doing the volunteer work makes me think a lot about my life.”
Chen is a long-term volunteer, having started at the same time she began at the university majoring in social work. She has tutored children of migrant workers and spent time with disaster survivors. She has already spent more than 600 hours volunteering.
Chen was born in Huangshan City, Anhui Province, into an army officer’s family, and both of her grandparents joined the army during World War II and fought against the Japanese invaders.
Chen felt a strong sense of responsibility for her family, and since childhood she believed the value of life was to light up others’ lives with her own. She says that’s why she chose social work as a college major.
“The results of my college entrance exam allowed me to choose those ‘much better majors’,” says Chen, “but I think I should choose my favorite major in college or it would be waste of time.”
Chen feels happy that she has made the right choice. Her study and volunteer work have shown that social workers can help change people’s lives and the social environment as well.
During her junior year in May 2013, she joined the palliative care program.
“I find that every Friday is my happiest day of the week,” says Chen. “I always believe seniors are wise, and their thoughts move me a lot.”
Chen doesn’t speak Shanghai dialect, but many of her service targets don’t speak Mandarin, so they usually communicate through writing.
She remembers every person she talks to in the wards. People like a 75-year-old man surnamed Chen, who had a wish to go back to the factory he worked for before retirement to tell his experiences to young people. Or a 57-year-old man surnamed Wang, who missed his daughter who wasn’t able to visit him frequently. He refused to communicate with people other than young Chen because she looked a little like his daughter.
Chen noted the patients’ wishes, comforted them when they felt upset and encouraged them to be as happy as they could.
“Sometimes when I think of those who have passed away, I feel gratified that I accompanied them to go through the last phase of their life,” she says. “We built mutual trust to each other, and this is very positive.”
After each patient dies, she writes down the impression they have left on her in her “Record of Life” journal.
“Every life is a spark that is worth recording,” she says. “And I think this is a good way to remember them.”
For the past summer holiday, Chen went to a summer camp in Taiwan to share her experience in the palliative care ward. She read her journals, and the children taking part in the camp were moved to tears.
“They thought about their relationship with their parents. And many of them immediately texted their parents to express their love toward them,” she recalls. “In fact, the relationship with my parents was what I felt most as well, after I started working in the ward. I thought of my parents a lot, about their love for me and how I could reward the love.”
Chen’s spare time is occupied with social work or relevant activities. She seldom watches TV or movies, apart from those that mirror social problems.
She reads a lot of books on philosophy, psychology and social work. Like her peers, she uses social media too, but most of the information she posts and reposts is about social work and charity.
As an undergraduate student, Chen has become deputy director of the Student Society Union of the university, as well as deputy director of Shanghai Health and Charity Society Union.
“I realize that no matter how much work I do, my power will not be as strong as people gathering together,” she says. “So I want to be the one who encourages more people to join me.”
Chen says modern people are restless and reckless. They sometimes are engaged in things under impulse and it’s hard for them to hold out until the end. She prevents herself from behaving that way. She says she always reminds herself not to forget the beginning, about her initial determination.
“The initial determination is ‘kindness,’ I think,” she says. “We use professional methods and knowledge to help others with our kindness and we spread kindness to others.”
Chen says she doesn’t want to make vows for the future that she cannot predict, or to be morally hijacked. “I can only say that at least for now, every morning when I wake up, I’m willing to be a happy social worker,” she says.
原文来源：《上海日报》 2014-12-2 | 作者：Lu Feiran