A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to visit The National Heart Institute. The people I work for and the National Heart Institute Foundation have been working hand in hand to raise money for those who are not able to afford treatment and the high costs of heart surgery. This joint venture began sometime in January/February and has proven to be quite a success. By June, a total of RM170,000 had been collected and the people I work for has brilliantly matched this number giving a grand total of RM340,000.
About 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the National Heart Institute for a media moment and also to visit the patients who had benefited from our collections. There were 7 of us altogether. All flight attendants, all beautiful, all armed with a million dollar smiles. But nothing prepared us for what we saw and what we felt once we were in there. A few of my colleagues were moved to tears and most of us had tears in our eyes.
When we stepped into the children's wards, it was like a whole different world. Sure the walls were bright and colourful but you could see the pain in the parents' eyes and the lost wonderment in the children's eyes. They were happy and they were bouncy but underneath it all, there was a strand of sadness. It hurts especially when you see a beautiful baby with tubes sticking out of the baby's body. And sometimes it's not one but a few.
We also got the chance to walk into the ICUs where we visited patients who are just recovering from surgery. There was this one particular girl (who was a recipient of my people's collections) who had just got out of surgery but she was still having problems. Apparently her body was rejecting the new heart that was put into her and they had to strap her to her bed to avoid her body going into violent fits. It was very heartbreaking to see.
We all came away from that day with a renewed passion for life. It's too fragile and we need to appreciatte it much more than we do now. I'm thankful I got to see first hand where the money was going to and how it was helping the people that needed aid. It's great to be part of a company that is focused on giving back to the community. We've got green projects going on and we've got charity projects going on. Not many businesses can do that. You've got to be really established to be able to do proper charity projects.
Ok.. enough of tears. I promise my next post will be a happy happy one!!
