I made the world a better place by teaching English to ‘difable’ (different-ability) therapists so now they can serve foreigner patients in a more appropriate way. I mean, now the therapists do not have to use body languages to ask patients to do something such as taking off their clothes or laying down on the bed.
I also volunteered teaching English for a language community named Fakta Bahasa for four months. Fakta Bahasa has various languages to teach such as English (writing and conversation), French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and so on. Most of the members aged 16-25-ish; some learnt from the basic, some had already known the language and wished to be fluent at it. I had ten students back then and most of them were college students. I love teaching them; it was really fun! I love making the syllabus and thinking about what conversation games I should bring for the next meetings. Also, seeing them immediately came out of their shells and had courage to speak English little by little was totally rewarding. I miss them! Every now and then we still keep in touch even though it’s only through group chat.
The other thing I did was helping Riset Indie to do social experiment about citizen’s preference to use public transportation called angkot. The social experiment was called ‘Angkot Day’–it was the day when everyone could take one route of angkot (Kalapa-Ledeng) for free. The research was about finding out what made citizen choose angkot than other means of transportation, what they liked and disliked about angkot, and so forth. I helped documenting the research, but I don’t know where those photos are right now. It was five years ago anyway.
The latest thing I have been doing is conducting a research about coffee farmers’ welfare and its relation to social capital in Pangalengan and sustainability of coffee in terms of economic, social, and environmental. The research is going to be put on a journal and published later, thus more about it later after I finish it all. Lol.
Another things would be as simple as smiling at passersby and having them smile back at me. Or telling stories and sharing some good laughs with friends. Or learning to bake. Or teasing my family for doing or saying something lame. Or walking instead of using vehicles if I need to buy something only a couple of blocks away.
Wow. Making the world a better place by doing simple acts makes me feel better in return. Gotta do it again!