Kenia, Health & Social Care, Vancouver

The motivation

I have never had any experience with people with disabilities begore therefore this was a great opportunity to have an insight and learn from them. Due to my interest in pursuing medicine in the future I wanted to know how this other side of medicine worked. I thought that the best way of learning is to experience in the first hand and listen to people’s experiences and try to understand different perspectives.

The placement

I was based in a non-profit organisation, RCD (Richmond Centre for Disabilities). It’s a lovely place with a friendly environment where everyone feels comfortable and welcome.

When you enter you see the front desk attended by a kind and friendly colleague. It has an activity room where all the activities and different programmes take place (table tennis, life skills lessons, social club, relaxing and exercising sessions). They also have a mini thrift store which is used for fundraising.

My main tasks were to support staff in the different activities such as gardening, life skills lessons and social games clubs. We also had the responsibility of advertising a donated vintage collection on social media, to increase donations.

The location

I loved the vegetation and fresh air of Vancouver. It is very interesting how in 10 minutes difference we pass from the city to a completely different scene; a farm, or basically rural.

I love the good vibes that Vancouver radiates, full of young people. When you go out, it’s very easy to make friends and to create bonds with people as they are very friendly and kind. The best thing is going out at night and seeing the warm yellow lights across the streets of downtown. There’s lots of things to do in Vancouver and I have enjoyed every single thing that I have done here. Amazing.