Paulina Ngo

SID: 860979879

Shiva Reflection

Today in Honors Colloquium, MDS Shiva gave a presentation on social work and the

importance of it. He went into thorough details of his own social work and his reasonings behind

it. One large reason for his doing of social work is the 2004 Tsunami; he formed a Village

Development Committee and aided in rebuilding and reconstructing villages that were destroyed.

He then went into building the Children Activity Centre in 2006. At the Children Activity Centre,

they focused on five aspects in the Children’s Collective: survival, protection, development,

participation, and communication. They believed that children had rights to all of those

privileges. The purpose of the children’s centre was to take action towards social justice; there

were large social issues such as child labor, child marriage, child trafficking, mid day meals, and

child abuse and harassment, and the child centre aimed towards putting an end to those

injustices.

Personally I am a strong believer in what Dr. Shiva believes. Similar to him, I want to

travel to Vietnam and do social work there, hopefully aiding in the current living conditions of

Vietnamese citizens. Right now, Vietnam is considered a third world country that is plagued with

human trafficking, starvation, and poverty, among with other social injustices. The streets are

dirty and thousands of homeless people roam the streets. Therefore, when I’m older and have a

degree, I hope to one day go to Vietnam and basically do work similar to that of Dr. Shiva’s. Dr.

Shiva’s presentation not only was interesting, but it also inspired me. It helped inspire to me

continue this aspiration of mine and follow through with my growing commitment.